As I build out my Personal Dashboard in Google Sheets through automated tasks with IFTTT (and Zapier), I often have to manipulate dates provided by IFTTT recipes that aren’t recognised by Google Sheets as the correct data type.

IFTTT currently provides date times with an annoying “at” in the middle of the string, like October 21, 2022 at 07:28AM.

To parse this data into a usable date, I use the following Google Sheet formula:

=DATEVALUE(REGEXREPLACE(C2,"at",""))

When you have a repeating dataset from an IFTTT recipe, I’d recommend using an ArrayFormula to automatically convert new rows.

=ArrayFormula(IF(ISBLANK(C2:C),,DATEVALUE(REGEXREPLACE(C2:C,"at",""))))
Parsed dates from IFTTT timestamps on Trakt TV viewings

This is one of the common use cases I always come back to when extending my Personal Dashboard so I’ll continue adding tips like this to my blog, mostly as a personal record but also for anyone else who experiences similar challenges.