Time formatting for charts

Note: This page is part of the Retrieve and chart data learning series.

If your chart has a time dimension on the x-axis, you can change the formatting of the x-axis label by using the Time Label Format setting in the X tab of the visualization options.

Time label expressions

You can format time values in Looker charts by using the syntax in the following table.

Format Type	Description	Expression
Time
Time	Milliseconds as a decimal number: 000 to 999	%L
Time	Second as a two-digit number: 00 to 59	%S
Time	Minute as a two-digit number: 00 to 59	%M
Time	Hour as a decimal number (24-hour clock): 00 to 23	%H
Time	Hour as a decimal number (12-hour clock): 01 to 12	%I
Time	Either AM or PM	%p
Date
Date	Day of the year as a decimal number: 001 to 366	%j
Date	Zero-padded day of the month: 01 to 31	%d
Date	Space-padded day of the month (equivalent to %_d): 1 to 31	%e
Date	Full weekday name: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday	%A
Date	Abbreviated weekday name (3-letter): Mon, Tue, Wed	%a
Date	Weekday as a decimal number (Sunday as the first day of the week): 0 to 6	%w
Week
Week	Week number of the year (Sunday as the first day of the week) as a two-digit number: 00 to 53 Note: %U uses the ISO week date standard offset by one day.	%U
Week	Week number of the year (Monday as the first day of the week) as a two-digit number: 00 to 53 Note: %W uses the ISO week date standard.	%W
Month
Month	Two-digit month: 01 through 12 (1-12 format not supported)	%m
Month	Abbreviated month name: Jan, Feb, Mar	%b
Month	Full month name: January, February, March	%B
Year
Year	Two-digit year: 00 to 99	%y
Year	Four-digit year: 2000, 2001, 2002	%Y
Combination
Combination	Full time, of the form "%H:%M:%S": 23:56:12	%X
Combination	Full date, of the form "%m/%d/%Y": 01/27/2014	%x
Combination	Datetime format with the following: "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Y": Mon Jan 1 23:56:04 2014	%c

Note: Quarter time formatting is not supported. Consider including a quarter timeframe in your date dimension_group and selecting that quarter timeframe in the visualization to display and filter data by quarters.

Examples

You can combine expressions together to create custom time formats, such as in the examples in the following table.

Input	Time Label Format	Output
August 14, 2014 10:31 PM	%b '%y, %H:%M	Aug '14, 22:31
August 14, 2014 10:31 PM	%B %Y, %I:%M %p	August 2014, 10:31 PM
August 14, 2014 10:31 PM	%x %X	08/14/2014 22:31:00
August 14, 2014 10:31 PM	%I:%M:%S %p	10:31:00 PM