8.2.1 The date/time prompt

When Org mode prompts for a date/time, the default is shown in default date/time format, and the prompt therefore seems to ask for a specific format. But it in fact accepts date/time information in a variety of formats. Generally, the information should start at the beginning of the string. Org mode finds whatever information is in there and derives anything you have not specified from the default date and time. The default is usually the current date and time, but when modifying an existing timestamp, or when entering the second stamp of a range, it is taken from the stamp in the buffer. When filling in information, Org mode assumes that most of the time you want to enter a date in the future: if you omit the month/year and the given day/month is before today, it assumes that you mean a future date⁶¹. If the date has been automatically shifted into the future, the time prompt shows this with ‘(=>F)’.

For example, let’s assume that today is June 13, 2006. Here is how various inputs are interpreted, the items filled in by Org mode are in bold.

Furthermore you can specify a relative date by giving, as the first thing in the input: a plus/minus sign, a number and a letter—‘d’, ‘w’, ‘m’ or ‘y’—to indicate change in days, weeks, months, or years. With a single plus or minus, the date is always relative to today. With a double plus or minus, it is relative to the default date. If instead of a single letter, you use the abbreviation of day name, the date is the Nth such day, e.g.:

The function understands English month and weekday abbreviations. If you want to use un-abbreviated names and/or other languages, configure the variables parse-time-months and parse-time-weekdays.

Not all dates can be represented in a given Emacs implementation. By default Org mode forces dates into the compatibility range 1970–2037 which works on all Emacs implementations. If you want to use dates outside of this range, read the docstring of the variable org-read-date-force-compatible-dates.

You can specify a time range by giving start and end times or by giving a start time and a duration (in HH:MM format). Use one or two dash(es) as the separator in the former case and use ‘+’ as the separator in the latter case, e.g.:

Parallel to the minibuffer prompt, a calendar is popped up⁶². When you exit the date prompt, either by clicking on a date in the calendar, or by pressing RET, the date selected in the calendar is combined with the information entered at the prompt. You can control the calendar fully from the minibuffer:

The actions of the date/time prompt may seem complex, but I assure you they will grow on you, and you will start getting annoyed by pretty much any other way of entering a date/time out there. To help you understand what is going on, the current interpretation of your input is displayed live in the minibuffer⁶⁴.