How To Stop Google Sheets From Changing Dates ( Easy Guide )

In this tutorial, you will learn How to Stop Google Sheets from Changing dates.

Stop Google Sheets From Changing Dates

To stop Google Sheets from Changing dates either you can disable the automatic conversion by unchecking the Automatic options from Format->Numbers or Select the available date format or custom date format from Format->Numbers -> “Date”,”Date and time”, or “Custom date and time”

Let’s go through the steps in detail.

How To Stop Google Sheets From Changing Dates: Step by Step Guide

Whenever you type a date in Google Sheets, it will be automatically converted to match the cell formatting. However, we can stop Google Sheet from doing the auto conversion. Let’s find out how

Enclosed are the steps to Stop Google Sheets from Changing Dates :

Step 1: Select the Cell in Google Sheets

Choose the cell in Google Sheet with a date that needs to be stopped from auto-conversion

Step 2: Now Click on the Format->Numbers and Choose the available date format

  • Under Format->Numbers you will get the option “Date”. “Date and time”.
  • You can either choose “Date” or “Date and time” depending on your requirement.
How To Stop Google Sheets From Changing Dates

Step 3: Choose “Custom date and time” if required

If the required date format is not available under Format->Numbers, you can also use the “Custom date and time ” option to specify your own custom date and time format.

Step 4: Select the date formatting on the “Custom Date and Time ” Screen

  • Once you click on the “Custom Date and Time” option. Custom Date and Time screen will pop-up
  • You can select the required date format from the available options as shown below

Change Year format

Once you click on the down or up arrow beside the Year field, you will get the option to change the year from a full numeric year to a Two-digit year

Change Month format

Similarly, when you click on the arrow beside the month, you will get the following options

  • Month without leading zero
  • Month with leading zero
  • Month as abbreviation
  • Month as full name
  • First letter of the month

You can choose the month format as per your need

Change Day format

For the day you get the following options:

  • Day without leading zero
  • Day with leading zero
  • Day as abbreviation
  • Day as full name

Step 5: Click on the Apply button to apply the changes.

Step 5: The selected cell will appear in the date format as per your selection

How to Clear auto-formatting and detection

In case you don’t want to follow the above steps to fix the auto conversion in Google Sheets, you can simply disable the automatic conversion in Google Sheet.

Enclosed are the steps to disable auto-formatting and detection

Step 1: Choose the cell where you need to enter a custom date

Step 2: Now Click on the Format menu ->Number and uncheck “Automatic

How To Stop Google Sheets From Changing Dates

After you uncheck the automatic option, once you type the date format in a cell Google Sheet will detect the custom date format and will use it for any further date entry in any other cell in the spreadsheet.

How To Stop Google Sheets From Changing Dates(Summary)

We hope this tutorial on How To Stop Google Sheets From Changing Dates was useful.

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