Hi Reader,

Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #204!

➜ News

I. The QUERY Function Course
​In case you missed the announcement earlier today, my newest course is now open for enrollment! Find out more:

​The QUERY Function in Google Sheets​

(Enjoy 50% off this week, until Friday at midnight EDT.)

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➜ Google Sheets Tip #204: How To Use Dates In The QUERY Function

Here is your Google Sheets tip, which you can think of as your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form.

Working with dates in the QUERY function is tricky.

With today's tip, I want to show you how to reference dates correctly in the QUERY function.

Attempt 1: Try A Regular Date ❌

If you simply drop a date into your QUERY function, for example as a condition in the WHERE filter, it won't return the data you're looking for.

This formula does NOT return any data:

Attempt 2: Try A Formatted Date ❌

The QUERY function needs dates in the ISO format, which is "YYYY-MM-DD".

That's a 4-digit year, a dash, two digits for the month, a dash, and finally, two digits for the day.

For example, today's date is written 2022-05-16.

Putting that into the formula looks like this:

Unfortunately, it still doesn't return any results. Hmm, there's one more thing we need to do...

Attempt 3: Add the "date" Keyword ✅

The last piece of the puzzle is to add the "date" keyword before the date in your filter condition, like this:

Woohoo!

Now the QUERY function will parse the data correctly and return all data after today's date.

Read more about filtering dates with the QUERY function.

Or, dive deep into the QUERY function (including dates!) in my new course:

​The QUERY Function in Google Sheets​

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Have a great week!

Cheers,
Ben