How to format time since xxx e.g. “4 minutes ago” similar to Stack Exchange sites

Question

The question is how to format a JavaScript Date as a string stating the time elapsed similar to the way you see times displayed on Stack Overflow.

e.g.<

Answer 1

Much readable and cross browser compatible code:

As given by @Travis

var DURATION_IN_SECONDS = {
  epochs: ['year', 'month', 'day', 'hour', 'minute'],
  year: 31536000,
  month: 2592000,
  day: 86400,
  hour: 3600,
  minute: 60
};

function getDuration(seconds) {
  var epoch, interval;

  for (var i = 0; i < DURATION_IN_SECONDS.epochs.length; i++) {
    epoch = DURATION_IN_SECONDS.epochs[i];
    interval = Math.floor(seconds / DURATION_IN_SECONDS[epoch]);
    if (interval >= 1) {
      return {
        interval: interval,
        epoch: epoch
      };
    }
  }

};

function timeSince(date) {
  var seconds = Math.floor((new Date() - new Date(date)) / 1000);
  var duration = getDuration(seconds);
  var suffix = (duration.interval > 1 || duration.interval === 0) ? 's' : '';
  return duration.interval + ' ' + duration.epoch + suffix;
};

alert(timeSince('2015-09-17T18:53:23'));

Answer 2

This should properly handle any valid timestamp, including Date.now(), singular units, and future dates. I left out months, but those should be easy to add in. I tried to keep it readable as possible.

function getTimeInterval(date) {
  let seconds = Math.floor((Date.now() - date) / 1000);
  let unit = "second";
  let direction = "ago";
  if (seconds < 0) {
    seconds = -seconds;
    direction = "from now";
  }
  let value = seconds;
  if (seconds >= 31536000) {
    value = Math.floor(seconds / 31536000);
    unit = "year";
  } else if (seconds >= 86400) {
    value = Math.floor(seconds / 86400);
    unit = "day";
  } else if (seconds >= 3600) {
    value = Math.floor(seconds / 3600);
    unit = "hour";
  } else if (seconds >= 60) {
    value = Math.floor(seconds / 60);
    unit = "minute";
  }
  if (value != 1)
    unit = unit + "s";
  return value + " " + unit + " " + direction;
}

console.log(getTimeInterval(Date.now())); // 0 seconds ago
console.log(getTimeInterval(Date.now() + 1000)); // 1 second from now
console.log(getTimeInterval(Date.now() - 1000)); // 1 second ago
console.log(getTimeInterval(Date.now() + 60000)); // 1 minute from now
console.log(getTimeInterval(Date.now() - 120000)); // 2 minutes ago
console.log(getTimeInterval(Date.now() + 120000)); // 2 minutes from now
console.log(getTimeInterval(Date.now() + 3600000)); // 1 hour from now
console.log(getTimeInterval(Date.now() + 360000000000)); // 11 years from now
console.log(getTimeInterval(0)); // 49 years ago

Answer 3

 I achieve this by following method

   timeAgo = (date) => {
            var ms = (new Date()).getTime() - date.getTime();
            var seconds = Math.floor(ms / 1000);
            var minutes = Math.floor(seconds / 60);
        var hours = Math.floor(minutes / 60);
        var days = Math.floor(hours / 24);
        var months = Math.floor(days / 30);
        var years = Math.floor(months / 12);
    
        if (ms === 0) {
            return 'Just now';
        } if (seconds < 60) {
            return seconds + ' seconds Ago';
        } if (minutes < 60) {
            return minutes + ' minutes Ago';
        } if (hours < 24) {
            return hours + ' hours Ago';
        } if (days < 30) {
            return days + ' days Ago';
        } if (months < 12) {
            return months + ' months Ago';
        } else {
            return years + ' years Ago';
        }
    
    }
    
        console.log(timeAgo(new Date()));
        console.log(timeAgo(new Date('Jun 27 2020 10:12:19')));
        console.log(timeAgo(new Date('Jun 27 2020 00:12:19')));
        console.log(timeAgo(new Date('May 28 2020 13:12:19')));
        console.log(timeAgo(new Date('May 28 2017 13:12:19')));

Answer 4

I was looking for an answer to this and almost implemented one of these solutions, but a colleague reminded me to check the react-intl library since we were already using it.

So adding to the solutions...in the case you are using the react-intl library, they have a <FormattedRelative> component for this.

https://github.com/yahoo/react-intl/wiki/Components#formattedrelative

Answer 5

A shorter version as used by Lokely:

const intervals = [
  { label: 'year', seconds: 31536000 },
  { label: 'month', seconds: 2592000 },
  { label: 'day', seconds: 86400 },
  { label: 'hour', seconds: 3600 },
  { label: 'minute', seconds: 60 },
  { label: 'second', seconds: 0 }
];

function timeSince(date) {
  const seconds = Math.floor((Date.now() - date.getTime()) / 1000);
  const interval = intervals.find(i => i.seconds < seconds);
  const count = Math.floor(seconds / interval.seconds);
  return `${count} ${interval.label}${count !== 1 ? 's' : ''} ago`;
}

Answer 6

Here is a slight modification on Sky Sander's solution that allows the date to be input as a string and is capable of displaying spans like "1 minute" instead of "73 seconds"

var timeSince = function(date) {
  if (typeof date !== 'object') {
    date = new Date(date);
  }

  var seconds = Math.floor((new Date() - date) / 1000);
  var intervalType;

  var interval = Math.floor(seconds / 31536000);
  if (interval >= 1) {
    intervalType = 'year';
  } else {
    interval = Math.floor(seconds / 2592000);
    if (interval >= 1) {
      intervalType = 'month';
    } else {
      interval = Math.floor(seconds / 86400);
      if (interval >= 1) {
        intervalType = 'day';
      } else {
        interval = Math.floor(seconds / 3600);
        if (interval >= 1) {
          intervalType = "hour";
        } else {
          interval = Math.floor(seconds / 60);
          if (interval >= 1) {
            intervalType = "minute";
          } else {
            interval = seconds;
            intervalType = "second";
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }

  if (interval > 1 || interval === 0) {
    intervalType += 's';
  }

  return interval + ' ' + intervalType;
};
var aDay = 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000;
console.log(timeSince(new Date(Date.now() - aDay)));
console.log(timeSince(new Date(Date.now() - aDay * 2)));