This tutorial intends to showcase how you can use the filter by date feature of Google Sheets’ filter menu in order to narrow down your dataset based on the criteria of dates. You’ll use the filter command to narrow down an unsorted set of data.
We’ll discuss how to access the filter command by the menu and everything else that’s relevant to the discussion.
Why Should You Filter by Date?
Sometimes, people filter by date by default, with them putting or encoding the data as soon as it comes. However, there are also times when you have to work by breaking the sequence because you have to sort the data by alphabetical order or by order to monetary magnitude instead.
It could also be that the dates being discussed is when they’re supposed to be shipped later—like in the animation task list—but certain scenes will take the animators, layout artists, and clean-up/in-between crew much longer than others, so they are delivered out of delivery sequence.
In such cases, you can use the filter or formula method in order to find specific entries in a specific data range in case the dates are left unsorted. Or you can simply sort out the data by date again to find that data set range.
How to Filter by Date in Google Sheets
Step 1: Open a spreadsheet featuring unsorted data containing a date of delivery or deadline column. We’ve created such a spreadsheet thusly. It’s a task list for writing with all the entries jumbled up in alphabetical order.
Step 2: Take note of the earliest date and the latest date for reference on what you’ll be putting into the sorting filter later on.
In this case, it’s the “How to hang projector screen outside” with its 4/1/2021 date (at Cell A25) that’s the earliest entry. Also, the “Can you microwave saran wrap” row with a 4/23/2021 date (at Cell A29) is the latest entry. They’re the start date and end date.
Step 3: Now click on “A” to select the whole Column A. Afterwards, click on the “Data” menu and select “Create a Filter”. This gives your “Date of Work” data set a new filter to work with.
Step 4: Click on the new down arrow icon in the lower right corner of “Date of Work”. This will bring up a new menu. Scroll down and select “Filter by Condition”, put in the first box, “is between” and put in the second and third boxes the date range you want to be filtered.
In this case, let’s see all the entries from 4/15/2021 to 4/20/2021. Any value between 4/1/2021 and 4/23/2021 will do. If you enter from 4/1/2021 to 4/23/2021, the filter won’t filter out any results because it covers the whole data set.
Afterwards, scroll down and click “OK” to save your settings.
Step 5: You should now see your unsorted data sorted by date from start date to end date thusly.
How to Sort by Date in Google Sheets
It’s probably easier to see your data range from 4/10/2021 to 4/20/2021 at a glance if the entries were arranged chronologically instead of using a filter. The filter is better suited for larger sets of data anyway.
To chronologically arrange a set of unsorted entries, do the following.
Step 1: Select all data (the headers must be frozen for this to work) then go to the “Data” menu, select “Sort range” and click on “Advanced range sorting options”.
Step 2: On the resulting “Sort range from A1 to Z1000” window, click the “Date has header row” box, then select the “A-Z” toggle, and then finally select “Sort”.
Yes, even when sorting dates, you pick “A-Z” to refer to chronological sorting rather than an alphabetical one. It just means it starts with the earliest date and moves down to the latest date.
Step 3: Your data is now sorted by chronological order. As a bonus, it’s much easier to see at a glance the “4/10/2022 to 4/20/2022” range of data you’re looking for without the filter.
The Ultimate Score
You can filter by date on Google Sheets as long as you know the earliest date and the later date available. This way, you won’t accidentally filter so widely that your unsorted data will all appear after applying the filter, thus defeating the purpose of a filter.
The filter will sort the rest of the dates between those two data points automatically. Or you can sort them chronologically in order to find them at a glance on the table itself. Either method should work.
References:
- “How to Filter by Date Range in Google Sheets (With Examples)“, Statology.org, October 23, 2021
- “Filter by Date Range Using Filter Menu in Google Sheets“, InfoInspired.com, Retrieved June 15, 2022
- “How to Sort by Date in Google Sheets (using Formula)“, SpreadsheetPoint.com, Retrieved June 15, 2022