Option to show absolute dates #5972
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         When investigating history, sometimes exact dates are more useful than "2 mo ago" -- would it be possible to have a toggle for this?  | 
  
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Replies: 39 comments 61 replies
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         B being able to tap on the "2mo ago" to see the full date/time stamp displayed would work rather than (or in addition to) a global toggle  | 
  
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         Thank you for your suggestion! We will track this issue internally :)  | 
  
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         +1 for making this an option. "1h ago" is not precise (can be anything from 60 to 119 minutes ago), and I don't like "1 months ago" or older. Workaround: Still the option to show absolute dates should be a GitHub standard feature.  | 
  
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         有在  | 
  
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         A keyboard shortcut to toggle absolute time vs relative time would be fantastic  | 
  
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         If someone is fine with ISO datetime format that will appear after focusing on relative date I made simplest possible user script: https://gist.github.com/matrixik/7bb0d7a290c66e6de29d183c4a38424d  | 
  
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 That's another kettle of fish, but I'd consider tremendously helpful if browsers could be made to stick with the user's preferred time zone and format reliably, and those choices would include UTC and ISO formats, respectively. It's a shame such a basic concept has gone down the "we know better what you want" chute. That being said, it's neither relevant to this issue nor very likely to make it disappear.  | 
  
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         Not only absolute dates for distant timestamps is needed, but it's also essential for near ones too. How do you compare "yesterday" with another event happened at "2024-05-08 10:42:58"? Hovering works for one timestamp at a time. It's laborious to hover on and read a couple of them.  | 
  
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         We are 2.6 years later and there is still no native option to display absolute datetimes. This surprises me, as it must have taken engineering effort to provide relative datetimes; the norm for most of the life of the Internet has been to show absolute datetimes. Why, then, is it so hard to give users the choice? The best solution that I have found so far is "Nudiflorum: display absolute date on GitHub" (repo) for Firefox. This works out of the box. That said, this is a workaround for something that should have been the default all along.  | 
  
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         +1 Agree with @GaryReckard that you could put the setting under "Appearance" IMO default should be absolute timestamp with the option to use "time ago" format.  | 
  
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         +1 
 Even when viewed in the morning, it's not intuitively clear what time the post was made.  | 
  
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         Much like their surveys, it feels like Microsoft doesn't really care all that much. There are so many quality of life posts like this that end up being ignored for years, if not indefinitely. While there are workarounds for browsers (userscripts, bookmarklets, etc.), you're pretty much out of luck using their official app.  | 
  
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        Allow users to display and/or easily copy absolute/exact dates in the GitHub UI (e.g., workflow runs, commits)Proposed Solution:Add a user or organization setting to toggle between relative and absolute date/time formats throughout the GitHub UI. Why is this important?:Improves accessibility and usability for users needing precise records or logs. Steps to Reproduce (Current Behavior):Go to a workflow run, commit, issue, or comment. Expected Behavior:Users should be able to configure the UI to show absolute dates/times by default. Additional context:Many users have requested this in discussions and forums. Competing platforms often provide more flexible date/time display and copy options.  | 
  
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         This is 100% necessary! How can I correlate regressions, metrics efficiently? (workflows, PRs) Older entries even fallback to absolutely unprecise measurements like  Just provide a simple toggle or shortcut! Please 🙏  | 
  
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         A quick hack is to disable JS on the page.  | 
  
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         +1 , I like the exact time  | 
  
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         +1, exact time is very helpful in many situations, and especially being able to copy the date/time would be helpful  | 
  
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         Has this been added? It's critical IMHO. It's only 4 years old request.  | 
  
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         +1  | 
  
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         +1  | 
  
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         +1, must-have imo  | 
  
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         +1 to this!  | 
  
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         +1, please!  | 
  
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Thank you for your suggestion! We will track this issue internally :)