How to get a date value from a datetime column in pandas?

Use the following snippet to convert a datetime column to the date data type:

your_df['just_date']= your_df['date'].dt.date

Alternatively, use the strftime formatting function to convert your datetime values to a formatted date string, for example”

your_df['formatted_date']= hr['date'].dt.strftime('%d/%m/%y')

Convert datetimes to date format – Practical example

Step 1: Define your data

We will start by importing the pandas package and defining a very simple pandas DataFrame. We will use the date_range pandas function to create three datetime values. We will then save them as a column in a pandas DataFrame object.

import pandas as pd

dates = pd.date_range(start='5/1/24 12:30:00', periods=3,)
interviews = [144, 123, 87]

hr = pd.DataFrame(dict(datetime=dates, interviews =interviews))

print (hr)

Here is our DataFrame:

	datetime	interviews
0	2024-05-01 12:30:00	144
1	2024-05-02 12:30:00	123
2	2024-05-03 12:30:00	87

Step 2: Convert datetime column to date

Next, we can use the dt pandas Series accesor to quickly get the date only format from the datetime column:

hr['short_date']= hr['datetime'].dt.date

A new column named short_date will be create in our DataFrame, showing the date in yyyy-mm-dd format:

	datetime	interviews	short_date
0	2024-05-01 12:30:00	144	2024-05-01
1	2024-05-02 12:30:00	123	2024-05-02
2	2024-05-03 12:30:00	87	2024-05-03

Step 3: Format datetime as a string

What is we would like to format our dates ass dd-mm-yyyy or other formats? If so, we use the strftime function as shown below:

hr['formatted_date']= hr['date'].dt.strftime('%d/%m/%y')

Note: Always make sure to to use the dt accessor before running strftime on your Series. Failing to do so will lead to an Attributeerror with strftime.