Get the Hours and Minutes from a Date in JavaScript

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# Get the Hours and Minutes from a Date in JavaScript

To get the hours and minutes from a date:

Use the getHours() method to get a number between 0 and 23 that represents the hour for the given date.
Use the getMinutes() method to get a number between 0 and 59 that represents the minutes in the given date.

index.js

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// ✅ get hours and minutes from the current Date
const now = new Date();

const hoursAndMinutes = now.getHours() + ':' + now.getMinutes();
console.log(hoursAndMinutes); // 👉️ 19:52

get hours and minutes from date

The getHours() method returns a number between 0 and 23 that represents the hour for the given date according to local time.

index.js

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const now = new Date();

console.log(now.getHours()); // 👉️ 19

console.log(now.getMinutes()); // 👉️ 53

The Date.getMinutes() method returns a number between 0 and 59 that represents the minutes in the given date.

The output from the functions will return a single digit if the hours and minutes are less than 10.

You can pad the values with a leading zero if necessary.

index.js

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// ✅ Get hours and minutes from a specified Date
function padTo2Digits(num) {
  return String(num).padStart(2, '0');
}

const date = new Date('December 14, 2026 08:09:00');
const hoursAndMinutes =
  padTo2Digits(date.getHours()) +
  ':' +
  padTo2Digits(date.getMinutes());

console.log(hoursAndMinutes); // 👉️ 08:09

pad the values with leading zero if necessary

We used the String.padStart method to add a leading zero to the hours and minutes if necessary.

If you have to get the hours and minutes from a date often, define a reusable function.

index.js

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function getHoursAndMinutes(date = new Date()) {
  return (
    padTo2Digits(date.getHours()) +
    ':' +
    padTo2Digits(date.getMinutes())
  );
}

function padTo2Digits(num) {
  return String(num).padStart(2, '0');
}

// ✅ Get hours and minutes from the current date
const current = getHoursAndMinutes();
console.log(current); // 👉️ 13:41

// ✅ Get hours and minutes from the specified date
const other = getHoursAndMinutes(
  new Date('2023-04-27T08:30:10.820'),
);
console.log(other); // 👉️ 08:30

The getHoursAndMinutes function takes a Date object and returns the hours and minutes from the date.

The function returns the hours and minutes from the current date if a Date object isn't supplied.

We also padded the hours and minutes with a leading zero to always format them as 2 digits.

# Get the Hours and Minutes from a Date using toLocaleTimeString

You can use the toLocaleTimeString() method to get a locale-specific representation of the hours and minutes.

index.js

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const now = new Date();

// 👇️ With PM / AM
const hoursAndMinutes = now.toLocaleTimeString('en-US', {
  hour: '2-digit',
  minute: '2-digit',
});

console.log(hoursAndMinutes); // 👉️ 07:55 PM

get hours and minutes from date using tolocaletimestring

We passed en-US for the locale and got the hours and minutes formatted as HH:MM PM/AM.

You can also set the locale to default to use the user's browser configuration.

index.js

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const now = new Date();

const hoursAndMinutes = now.toLocaleTimeString('default', {
  hour: '2-digit',
  minute: '2-digit',
});
console.log(hoursAndMinutes); // 👉️ 01:35 PM

The second argument we passed to the method is an options object. We set both the hour and minute properties to 2-digit.

This means that even if the hours and minutes are less than 10, a leading 0 automatically gets added to make the output consistent.

Similarly, you could use a different locale to get a different output format.

index.js

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const now = new Date();

const enUS = now.toLocaleTimeString('en-US', {
  hour: '2-digit',
  minute: '2-digit',
});
console.log(enUS); // 👉️ 01:47 PM

const enGB = now.toLocaleTimeString('en-GB', {
  hour: '2-digit',
  minute: '2-digit',
});
console.log(enGB); // 👉️ 13:47

const deDE = now.toLocaleTimeString('de-DE', {
  hour: '2-digit',
  minute: '2-digit',
});
console.log(deDE); // 👉️ 13:47

The output of the toLocaleTimeString method is always going to display 2 digits for the hours and minutes, so we don't have to add a leading zero if their values are less than 10.

The other possible value for the hour and minute properties is numeric.

The numeric value doesn't add a leading zero if the hours and minutes are less than 10.

index.js

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const now = new Date();

const hoursAndMinutes = now.toLocaleTimeString('default', {
  hour: 'numeric',
  minute: 'numeric',
});
console.log(hoursAndMinutes); // 👉️ 1:37 PM

We set the hour and minute properties to numeric, so they didn't get padded with a leading zero.

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Get the Hours and Minutes from a Date in JavaScript

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