Displaying dates and times on Linux

$ date +%A
Thursday 

If you want the month spelled out fully, use a command like this one:

$ date +"%B %d"
July 04

Looking forward in time

The date command also allows you to show dates in the future. While you likely know what day tomorrow is, you could use a similar command to display the current time but the next day.

$ date --date="tomorrow"
Fri Jul  5 11:12:11 AM EDT 2024

This next command shows the day of the week 2 years in the future.

$ date +%A --date "2 year"
Saturday

The next command shows the full date.

$ date --date="2 year"
Sat Jul  5 11:14:07 AM EDT 2026

Looking backward in time

You can also use the date command to display dates and times in the past. The commands below show yesterday’s date, the date and time two hours ago and the day of the week from two years ago today.

$ date --date="yesterday"
Wed Jul  3 11:19:02 AM EDT 2024

$ date --date "2 hour ago"
Thu Jul  4 09:21:23 AM EDT 2024

$ date +%A --date "2 year"
Saturday

$ date --date="+7 days ago"
Thu Jun 27 09:23:07 AM EDT 2024

Multi-line date info

If you want to display date and time information in a multi-line display, insert a newline (%n) string into your date command where the break should occur. Here’s an example: