Return Format
The date format that is returned when loading the value. Please note that the value is always saved as Y-m-d H:i:s (YYYY-MM-DD HH:II:SS) in the database.

Week Starts On
Specifies the day to start the week on.

Template usage

The Date Time Picker field returns a date-time string using the Return Format setting.

Display value

This example demonstrates how to display a date-time value.

<p>Event starts: <?php the_field('start_date'); ?></p>

Query posts sorted in order

This example demonstrates how you can query posts sorted in order of a custom field value.

$posts = get_posts( array( 'posts_per_page' => -1, 'post_type' => 'event', 'order' => 'ASC', 'orderby' => 'meta_value', 'meta_key' => 'start_date', 'meta_type' => 'DATETIME', if( $posts ) { foreach( $posts as $post ) { // Do something.

Query posts within date range

This example demonstrates how you can query posts to find events that are currently happening today.

// Find todays date in Ymd format. $date_now = date('Y-m-d H:i:s'); // Query posts using a meta_query to compare two custom fields; start_date and end_date. $posts = get_posts( array( 'post_type' => 'event', 'meta_query' => array( array( 'key' => 'start_date', 'compare' => '<=', 'value' => $date_now, 'type' => 'DATETIME', array( 'key' => 'end_date', 'compare' => '>=', 'value' => $date_now, 'type' => 'DATETIME', if( $posts ) { foreach( $posts as $post ) { // Do something.

Query upcoming posts

This example demonstrates how to query and loop over upcoming events (in the next 7 days) ordered by a custom date time field value.

// Find current date time. $date_now = date('Y-m-d H:i:s'); $time_now = strtotime($date_now); // Find date time in 7 days. $time_next_week = strtotime('+7 day', $time_now); $date_next_week = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $time_next_week); // Query events. $posts = get_posts(array( 'posts_per_page' => -1, 'post_type' => 'event', 'meta_query' => array( array( 'key' => 'start_date', 'compare' => 'BETWEEN', 'value' => array( $date_now, $date_next_week ), 'type' => 'DATETIME' 'order' => 'ASC', 'orderby' => 'meta_value', 'meta_key' => 'start_date', 'meta_type' => 'DATETIME' if( $posts ) { foreach( $posts as $post ) { // Do something.

Save as unix timestamp

This example demonstrates how to change the value saved from the standard ‘Y-m-d H:i:s’ string to a unix timestamp number. This may be necessary to maintain compatibility with third party date time picker fields.

add_filter('acf/update_value/type=date_time_picker', 'my_update_value_date_time_picker', 10, 3); function my_update_value_date_time_picker( $value, $post_id, $field ) { return strtotime( $value );

Notes

Database format

The value selected can be returned and displayed in different formats but will be saved to the database as ‘Y-m-d H:i:s’. This format is used throughout the WordPress database tables and will allow for straight-foward database querying.

Date format strings

To customize the Display Format and Return Format settings further, refer to the full list of date format strings within the DateTime::createFromFormat() documentation .

Date formats in JavaScript

Some JavaScript libraries might format PHP date strings differently. For example, the following date function in PHP:

echo date('F j, Y @ g:i a');

Will output something like:

November 19, 2021 @ 1:49 pm

However, if you pass this value to the somethign like the jQuery UI DatePicker Widget , it will see the @ as a special character to be formatted return the Unix timestamp, which is not ideal.

In order to fix this, you can use the acf/settings/php_to_js_date_formats filter, which will convert any instance of the @ symbol to '@' , and thereby treated as a string in JavaScript, instead of a character to be replaced.

add_filter('acf/settings/php_to_js_date_formats', 'support_at_symbol_in_date_format', 10, 1);
function support_at_symbol_in_date_format($formats) {
    $formats['@'] = "'@'";
    return $formats;
Translations
If you require the date to be displayed in a non English language, WordPress contains a function called date_i18n() which will perform the translation for you.
// Load field value and convert to numeric timestamp.
$unixtimestamp = strtotime( get_field('date') );
// Display date in the format "l d F, Y".
echo date_i18n( "l d F, Y", $unixtimestamp );

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