Background
When you use a date or datetime ingredient in an Applet, the format it appears in depends on where you use it.
This guide will outline what date formats will be used depending on where the ingredient is used.
In Action and query fields
When you use a date ingredient into an Action field like the body of an email, a spreadsheet row, or a calendar event, it comes out in a friendly, human-readable format:
May 26, 2026 at 4:03PM
The format can't be changed directly in the field. The ingredient always outputs a human-readable format.
In filter code
When the same ingredient is used inside filter code (either read directly, or written to an Action via setFormattedRow or similar), it arrives in ISO 8601 format:
2026-05-26T16:03:00Z
This is intentional, ISO 8601 is much easier to work with programmatically. You can parse and reformat it however you like using moment:
const formatted = moment(Trigger.CreatedAt).format("MMMM D, YYYY [at] h:mma");
// → "May 26, 2026 at 4:03pm"Why this matters
If your Applet uses filter code that sets an Action field value (e.g. GoogleSheets.appendToGoogleSpreadsheet.setFormattedRow(...)), any date ingredients you include will be in ISO 8601, not human-readable.
You'll need to format them manually in the filter code if you want them to look friendly.
This is a common reason date values might look unexpected in your Action output. For example, a spreadsheet cell showing 2026-05-22T18:02:28Z instead of May 22, 2026 at 6:02AM.
Example
In the image below, entries 2 to 7 return a human-readable date format. This occurs when using a simple Trigger → Action flow. After introducing Filter Code, entry 8 shows a raw timestamp (2026-05-22T18:02:28Z).
Before:
// Build formatted row with extracted slug
let formattedRow = `${Trigger.Name} ||| ${Trigger.CreatedAt} ||| ${Trigger.ServiceUrl} ||| https://www.reddit.com/search/?q=${serviceSlug}`;How to fix:
// Format CreatedAt as human-readable date
let formattedDate = moment(Trigger.CreatedAt).format("MMMM D, YYYY [at] h:mmA");After adding the fix, entry 9 returns to a human-readable date format.
Note on existing Applets
This behaviour applies to Applets created after February 24, 2026 12:00pm (PST). Applets created before that date are unaffected.