How do I get current date/time on the Windows command line in a suitable format for usage in a file/folder name?

Question

Update: Now that it\'s 2016 I\'d use PowerShell for this unless there\'s a really compelling backwards-compatible reason for it, particularly because of the regional setting

Answer 1

Here's a way to get date time in a single line:

for /f "tokens=2,3,4,5,6 usebackq delims=:/ " %a in ('%date% %time%') do echo %c-%a-%b %d%e

In the US this will output "yyyy-mm-dd hhmm". Different regional settings will result in different %date% outputs, but you can modify the token order.

If you want a different format, modify the echo statement by rearranging the tokens or using different (or no) separators.