Extract Dates

Scan and pull all chronological data from logs, legal docs, or unstructured text

Time Scraper

Content for Date Extraction

Words: 0

Dates Found: 0

Extracted Timeline

Find every date in a block of text

Contracts, meeting notes, email threads and log files scatter dates through paragraphs of other content. Searching by eye is slow and easy to get wrong. This tool scans whatever you paste and lists each date it recognizes, so you can check deadlines, build a timeline or transfer them into a spreadsheet. The scan runs in your browser as a text pattern search.

How to run an extraction

Paste your material into Content for Date Extraction. Paste reads the clipboard, Sample loads a short example, and Clear empties the box and resets the counters.
Check the running Words count above the button if you want a sense of size.
Press Extract All Dates.
The Extracted Timeline panel lists each match with a copy button beside it. The Dates Found counter shows how many were listed.
Press Export JSON to download extracted_data.json containing the list.

Formats that are recognized

Numeric dates with slashes or hyphens, such as 12/05/2024, 8-22-2024 or 3/7/24, with one or two digits for day and month and two to four for the year.
Month-name dates where the month is written out or abbreviated, followed by the day and a four-digit year, such as Jan 15, 2023 or December 3 2021. The comma is optional and case does not matter.

Where it helps

Listing all deadlines and effective dates from a long agreement.
Building a chronology from case notes or research documents.
Auditing dates mentioned in an email chain before replying.
Collecting timestamps from a text dump for use in a spreadsheet.

Limits to keep in mind

The pattern does not understand what a date means. Something like 45/99/2024 would still be listed, and the tool cannot tell whether 04/05/2024 is April 5 or 4 May, so check regional conventions yourself. Formats outside the two families above are not found, including ISO dates like 2024-05-12, dotted dates like 12.05.2024, and dates written with the day first such as 5 January 2024. Duplicates are removed only when the text matches exactly, so 12/05/2024 and 12-05-2024 both appear. Results are listed in the order they first occur.

For long documents, run the extraction on one section at a time if you want to keep track of where each date came from, since the list does not show line numbers or surrounding context.

Related Tools

Frequently Asked Questions

Which date formats does the tool find?

It finds numeric dates separated by slashes or hyphens, like 12/05/2024 or 08-22-2024, and month-name dates like Jan 15, 2023. It does not detect ISO style 2024-05-12, dotted dates or day-first text such as 5 January 2024.

Does it tell me whether a date is day-month or month-day?

No. It only matches the text pattern and lists it as written. A value such as 04/05/2024 is returned unchanged, so you must decide from context whether it means April 5 or 4 May.

Are repeated dates listed more than once?

Identical strings are combined so each appears once, in order of first appearance. Two different spellings of the same day, such as 12/05/2024 and 12-05-2024, are treated as separate results.

Will impossible dates be filtered out?

No. The tool does not check calendar validity, so text that looks like a date, for example 45/99/2024, can be listed. Review the results if your source may contain codes or version numbers in a similar shape.

How can I save the results?

Click the copy icon beside any single date, or use Export JSON to download extracted_data.json, which holds every date found as a JSON array. This tool does not offer a plain text download.