Format a Date as MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss in JavaScript

Format a Date as MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss in JavaScript #

To format a date as MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss:

1. Get all the components of the date using the methods on the Date object.
2. Add a leading zero to the day, month, hours, minutes and seconds if the value is less than 10 to always get consistent results.
3. Join the date related strings with a forward slash and the time related ones with a colon.

Copied!
function padTo2Digits(num) {
  return num.toString().padStart(2, '0');
}

function formatDate(date) {
  return (
    [
      padTo2Digits(date.getMonth() + 1),
      padTo2Digits(date.getDate()),
      date.getFullYear(),
    ].join('/') +
    ' ' +
    [
      padTo2Digits(date.getHours()),
      padTo2Digits(date.getMinutes()),
      padTo2Digits(date.getSeconds()),
    ].join(':')
  );
}

// 👇️ 10/24/2021 16:51:53 (mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss)
console.log(formatDate(new Date()));

//  👇️️ 05-04-2025 05:24:07 (mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss)
console.log(formatDate(new Date('May 04, 2025 05:24:07')));

The first thing we did is create a padTo2Digits function, which will take care of adding a leading zero if the month, day, hours, minutes or seconds only contain a single digit (are less than 10).

Copied!
function padTo2Digits(num) {
  return num.toString().padStart(2, '0');
}

console.log(padTo2Digits(1)); // 👉️ '01'
console.log(padTo2Digits(5)); // 👉️ '05'
console.log(padTo2Digits(10)); // 👉️ '10'

We want to make sure that the result is always consistent and has 2 digits for the months, days, hours, minutes and seconds, so we used the padStart method.

Next, we created a function that takes a date and formats it to mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss.

The function makes use of the following 6 Date related methods.

• Date.getMonth - returns an integer between 0 (January) and 11 (December) and represents the month for a given date. Yes, unfortunately the getMonth method is off by 1.

• Date.getDate - returns an integer between 1 and 31 representing the day of the month for a specific date.

• Date.getFullYear method - returns a four-digit number representing the year that corresponds to a date.

• Date.getHours - returns the hour for the specified date.

• Date.getMinutes - returns the minutes for a date.

• Date.getSeconds - returns the seconds of a specific date.

Because the getMonth method is zero-based we added 1 to its return value.

We placed the return values from the date-related methods in an array, so we can join them with a forward slash / separator.

Copied!
console.log(['06', '26', '2026'].join('/')); // 👉️ '06/26/2026'
console.log(['11', '16', '2025'].join('/')); // 👉️ '11/16/2025'

This gets us a date formatted as mm/dd/yyyy.

We added the return values from the time-related methods into an array and joined them with a colon separator.

Copied!
console.log(['09', '12', '36'].join(':')); // 👉️ '09:12:36'
console.log(['06', '36', '56'].join(':')); // 👉️ '06:36:56'

We used the addition (+) operator to add a space between the date and time related strings to get a date formatted as mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss.

Here's the complete code snippet.

Copied!
function padTo2Digits(num) {
  return num.toString().padStart(2, '0');
}

function formatDate(date) {
  return (
    [
      padTo2Digits(date.getMonth() + 1),
      padTo2Digits(date.getDate()),
      date.getFullYear(),
    ].join('/') +
    ' ' +
    [
      padTo2Digits(date.getHours()),
      padTo2Digits(date.getMinutes()),
      padTo2Digits(date.getSeconds()),
    ].join(':')
  );
}

// 👇️ 10/24/2021 16:51:53 (mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss)
console.log(formatDate(new Date()));

//  👇️️ 05-04-2025 05:24:07 (mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss)
console.log(formatDate(new Date('May 04, 2025 05:24:07')));

Further Reading #

• How to get the Day of a Week in JavaScript
• Format a Date as YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss in JavaScript