Date Time Shortcut

May 30, 2025

When writing Markdown in VS Code it’s useful to be able to insert the current date and time quickly. You can do this by setting up a keyboard shortcut¹ that inserts the current date and time in a specific format.

To set up a date time shortcut in VS Code, follow these steps:

1. Open the command palette by pressing Ctrl+Shift+P (or Cmd+Shift+P on macOS).

2. Type “Preferences: Open Keyboard Shortcuts (JSON)” and select it.

3. Add the following JSON snippet to your keybindings.json file

   },
   {
       "key": "ctrl+d t",
       "command": "editor.action.insertSnippet",
       "when": "editorTextFocus",
       "args": {
           "snippet": "$CURRENT_YEAR-$CURRENT_MONTH-${CURRENT_DATE}T$CURRENT_HOUR:$CURRENT_MINUTE:$CURRENT_SECOND.000"
       }
   }
   

4. Save the file.

5. Now, whenever you press Ctrl+d t (or your chosen key combination), it will insert the current date and time in the format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.000.