Round time to the nearest 15 Minutes using JavaScript

Round time to the nearest 15 Minutes using JavaScript #

To round time to the nearest 15 minutes:

1. Convert 15 minutes to milliseconds.
2. Divide the date's value in milliseconds by the result from the conversion.
3. Pass the result to the Math.round() function.
4. Multiply by the number of milliseconds in 15 minutes.

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function roundToNearest15(date = new Date()) {
  const minutes = 15;
  const ms = 1000 * 60 * minutes;

  // 👇️ replace Math.round with Math.ceil to always round UP
  return new Date(Math.round(date.getTime() / ms) * ms);
}

// 👇️ Mon Jan 24 2022 09:00:00 (minutes are 7)
console.log(roundToNearest15(new Date(2022, 0, 24, 9, 7, 00)));

// 👇️ Mon Jan 24 2022 09:15:00 (minutes are 8)
console.log(roundToNearest15(new Date(2022, 0, 24, 9, 8, 00)));

We used the Date() constructor when logging the examples to the console. The parameters we passed are: year, month (January = 0, February = 1, etc), day of month, hours, minutes, seconds.

We created a reusable function that rounds a date to the nearest 15 minutes.

If you always want to round up, replace the Math.round() function with Math.ceil().

The ms variable stores the number of milliseconds there are in 15 minutes.

The getTime method returns the number of milliseconds since the Unix Epoch.

We divide the result by the number of milliseconds in 15 minutes and round to the nearest integer using the Math.round function.

Here are some examples of how Math.round works.

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console.log(Math.round(4.49)); // 👉️ 4
console.log(Math.round(4.5)); // 👉️ 5

The function rounds the number up or down to the nearest integer.

If the number is positive and its fractional portion is less than 0.5, it gets rounded to the lower absolute value.

If you always want to round up to the next 15 minutes, use the Math.ceil function instead.

Copied!
function roundToNearest15(date = new Date()) {
  const minutes = 15;
  const ms = 1000 * 60 * minutes;

  return new Date(Math.ceil(date.getTime() / ms) * ms);
}

// 👇️ Mon Jan 24 2022 09:15:00 (minutes are 7)
console.log(roundToNearest15(new Date(2022, 0, 24, 9, 7, 00)));

// 👇️ Mon Jan 24 2022 09:15:00 (minutes are 8)
console.log(roundToNearest15(new Date(2022, 0, 24, 9, 8, 00)));

The Math.ceil function returns the smallest integer that is greater than or equal to the provided number.

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console.log(Math.ceil(4.1)); // 👉️ 5
console.log(Math.ceil(4.0001)); // 👉️ 5

In short, if there is anything after the decimal, the number will get rounded to the next integer, otherwise the number is returned.

The last step is to multiply the value from calling Math.round or Math.ceil with the number of milliseconds there are in 15 minutes and pass the result to the Date() constructor.

The roundToNearest15 function returns a new Date object with the minutes rounded to the nearest 15.