Human Readable Dates

An Obsidian plugin that transforms dates into human-readable, relative formats (e.g., "Yesterday", "2 hours ago", "In 3 days") while preserving the original date strings in your notes. Only works in Live Preview mode with seamless cursor-based editing.

Usage

The plugin automatically detects and transforms dates in the user specified format.

Time Precision

The plugin shows different levels of precision based on how recent the date is:

• Within 5 minutes: "Now"
• 5-59 minutes: "15 mins ago", "30 mins ago", "In 20 mins"
• 1-23 hours: "2 hours ago", "5 hours ago", "In 8 hours"
• Days: "Yesterday", "Tomorrow", "3 days ago", "In 5 days"
• Weeks: "Last week", "Next week", "2 weeks ago"
• Months: "Last month", "Next month", "3 months ago"
• Years: "Last year", "Next year", "2 years ago"

Examples

Original Date	Display
Fri Aug 29 2025 14:55 (5 mins ago)	5 mins ago
Fri Aug 29 2025 12:00 (2 hours ago)	2 hours ago
Thu Aug 28 2025 (yesterday)	Yesterday
Sat Aug 30 2025 (tomorrow)	Tomorrow
[[Sun Aug 31 2025]] (in 2 days)	In 2 days

Editing

Simply move your cursor over any transformed date to reveal the original text for editing. The human-readable display will automatically return when you move the cursor away.

Settings

• Date format: Configure the date format to match your needs (default: ddd MMM DD YYYY HH:mm)

Installation

Manual installation

Unzip the latest release into your <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/ folder.

Requirements

• Obsidian v0.15.0+
• Live Preview mode

License

MIT License