Subtract days from a date in JavaScript

Answer 1

Try something like this:

 var d = new Date();
 d.setDate(d.getDate()-5);

Note that this modifies the date object and returns the time value of the updated date.

var d = new Date();

document.write('Today is: ' + d.toLocaleString());

d.setDate(d.getDate() - 5);

document.write('<br>5 days ago was: ' + d.toLocaleString());

Answer 2

I noticed that the getDays+ X doesn't work over day/month boundaries. Using getTime works as long as your date is not before 1970.

var todayDate = new Date(), weekDate = new Date();
weekDate.setTime(todayDate.getTime()-(7*24*3600000));

Answer 3

I made this prototype for Date so that I could pass negative values to subtract days and positive values to add days.

if(!Date.prototype.adjustDate){
    Date.prototype.adjustDate = function(days){
        var date;

        days = days || 0;

        if(days === 0){
            date = new Date( this.getTime() );
        } else if(days > 0) {
            date = new Date( this.getTime() );

            date.setDate(date.getDate() + days);
        } else {
            date = new Date(
                this.getFullYear(),
                this.getMonth(),
                this.getDate() - Math.abs(days),
                this.getHours(),
                this.getMinutes(),
                this.getSeconds(),
                this.getMilliseconds()
            );
        }

        this.setTime(date.getTime());

        return this;
    };
}

So, to use it i can simply write:

var date_subtract = new Date().adjustDate(-4),
    date_add = new Date().adjustDate(4);

Answer 4

Using Modern JavaScript function syntax

const getDaysPastDate = (daysBefore, date = new Date) => new Date(date - (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * daysBefore));

console.log(getDaysPastDate(1)); // yesterday

Answer 5

It goes something like this:

var d = new Date(); // today!
var x = 5; // go back 5 days!
d.setDate(d.getDate() - x);

Answer 6

get moment.js. All the cool kids use it. It has more formatting options, etc. Where

var n = 5;
var dateMnsFive = moment(<your date>).subtract(n , 'day');

Optional! Convert to JS Date obj for Angular binding.

var date = new Date(dateMnsFive.toISOString());

Optional! Format

var date = dateMnsFive.format("YYYY-MM-DD");