Dates in my excel not filling sequentially only copying

mwtbealwestnetcomau 

Dear, 

If you type date this way i-e 15-Feb-2024, then auto series options will work. If you type date this way i-e 15-02-2024, only year series will be filled. Try it.Date Auto Series Solved 

mwtbealwestnetcomau 

It seems that you want to clean the litter box more often than once a year. 😉 

Your screenshot is quite useful in identifying the problem.  Notice that your formula bar contains "Friday, 10/5/24".  But Excel does not display dates that way in the formula bar.  (You can, of course, make Excel display dates that way within cells.)  And the different "dates" in column A entries start with "Friday, ", even when those dates do not fall on a Friday; Excel will not make that kind of mistake.

Your problem is that you have text values in those cells.  Excel is autofilling, but it is incrementing only the numeric portion (two digits) it finds at the end of the text.

To get this correct, clear the contents of those "date" cells, and make sure column A is formatted as General (this format will be changed later).  Then enter just the first date (in your case, in the m/d/yy format, or yyyy-mm-dd format, or whatever comes naturally to you and is recognized by Excel as a date).  For the general case, enter the next expected date in the cell below that, to give Excel an idea as to the pattern of values to follow.  Then use the fill handle to autofill dates as far down as desired.

To get the day of week to appear within the cells in the format you seem to want, assign those cells (or simply, the entire column) the custom format "dddd, d/m/yy" (without the quotes, of course):

As dates/times are implicitly based on numbers, the cell values are displayed by default aligned to the right, but you can override that if desired.

mwtbealwestnetcomau 

If the fill handle in Excel is only copying the date instead of filling it sequentially, it might be because the fill series option is disabled.

Here is how you can enable it:

1. Enter the starting date in a cell.
2. Click and drag the fill handle (the small square in the bottom-right corner of the selected cell) to the desired range where you want to fill the dates.
3. When you release the mouse button, a small options box should appear next to the filled cells.

If you don't see the options box, follow these steps to enable it:

1. Go to the "File" tab in the Excel ribbon.
2. Click on "Options" to open the Excel Options dialog box.
3. In the dialog box, select the "Advanced" tab.
4. Scroll down to the "Editing options" section.
5. Make sure the "Enable fill handle and cell drag-and-drop" option is checked.
6. Click on the "OK" button to save the changes and close the dialog box.

After enabling the fill handle and cell drag-and-drop option, try dragging the fill handle again to fill the dates sequentially. The options box should appear, allowing you to choose the "Fill Series" option. Selecting this option will fill the dates in a sequential manner based on the pattern identified by Excel.

Note that the availability of the fill series option may depend on the data type of the cells or the formatting applied to them. Ensure that the cells are formatted as dates or use the "Format Cells" option to set the desired date format before using the fill handle.