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clarkej's avatar
clarkej
Occasional Reader
Apr 15, 2026

MO 365 Excel - Difficulty Changing a Date format

I am using MO 365  - apps for Business, currently received an Excel Spreadsheet and am attempting to change date format in Excel and have tried all the usual methods however the dates remain unchanged.

I need to change the date  from month /day/year  as 1/31/2025 to Year/Month/Day 2025/1/31

Any Suggestions?

 

Thanks

CJ

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2 Replies

  • NikolinoDE's avatar
    NikolinoDE
    Platinum Contributor
    Apr 16, 2026

    m_tarler has made a very good point. If standard date formatting isn't working, the values are likely stored as text, not as actual dates.

    m_tarler’s suggested method — Text to Columns — is typically the most efficient fix:

    1. Select the date column.
    2. Go to Data > Text to Columns.
    3. Choose Delimited > Next > Uncheck all delimiters > Next.
    4. Under Column data format, select Date: MDY > Finish.

    This converts the text to real date values. After that, you can format the cells as needed:

    • Right-click > Format Cells > Custom > Type: yyyy/m/d

    That will give you 2025/1/31.

     

    If for some reason Text to Columns doesn't work, you can also use a formula in a helper column:

    =DATE(RIGHT(A1,4), LEFT(A1,FIND("/",A1)-1), MID(A1,FIND("/",A1)+1, FIND("/",A1, FIND("/",A1)+1)-FIND("/",A1)-1))

     

    But m_tarler’s approach is simpler and should resolve the issue in most cases.

     

    My answers are voluntary and without guarantee!

     

    Hope this will help you too.

  • m_tarler's avatar
    m_tarler
    Silver Contributor
    Apr 15, 2026

    if you have tried various date formats and they haven't changed, my guess is they are actually TEXT that just look like dates.  You can try DATA -> Text to Columns and just next through to step 3 and select Date: MDY and then Finish.  After that the data should now be actual dates and you can change the format accordingly (under 'more number formats' and then Date and yyyy-mm-dd is listed 3rd on my app or you can go to custom and specify yyyy/m/d for the format you listed but note I believe the international standard (ISO 8601) is actually yyyy-mm-dd (and there are some variants allowed but I don't believe the use of / is one of them).