How to Fill a Column with Sequential Dates in Google Sheets

Question

In Excel, you can right-click drag a date downwards to fill a column with the next dates in the sequence. For example, if you enter 9/1/2014, select that cell, then right-click drag down over the cells below, Excel will fill those cells with 10/1/2014, 11/1/2014, etc for you. This doesn't work with a single cell selection in Google Sheets - how can I get this to work?

Answer 1

The key is to enter at least the first two values to get auto fill to work with a pattern

Answer 2

As it was already pointed out in other answers, you have to select at least two cells containing successive dates.

However, this didn't work for me at first because my Google Sheet had the wrong locale and the cells had the wrong formatting.

Set the locale for your Google Sheet:

1. File menu → Spreadsheet settings... → Set the correct locale
   
   

Configure the right date format for the cells:

1. Select all the cells or the column that should contain the dates
2. Format menu → Numbers → Date (if the desired date format is already available there. If not, go deeper into the menu with the next steps)
3. → More formats → More date and time formats...
4. Either pick a pre-defined date format from the list or configure your own
   
   

Now fill in the column with the successive dates:

This was already explained in other answers, but for completeness sake I explain it here again.

1. Manually write two successive dates into two cells
2. Select both cells (click the first, then shift-click the second).
3. On bottom right corner of the blue selection rectangle you'll see a little square. Drag that square and mark all cells that you want to populate with successive dates
   
   

All those cells should now be automatically filled with successive dates.

Answer 3

The next level would be to use ARRAYFORMULA:

=ARRAYFORMULA(TEXT(ROW(INDIRECT("A"&DATEVALUE("2018-4-13")&
                               ":A"&DATEVALUE("2018-4-30"))), "dd/mm/yyyy"))

Answer 4

Logic:

1. In first column we can put current date using =Today() this will give current date.
2. In order to get next date we must increase the date by 1. To get next date we can add =Today()+1

If you want more sequential dates. Then follow this approach:

Step 1. Column A put the cell A1 as =Today()

Step 2. In column B we want number of days to add so make entries from 0, 1, 2… desired days to add.

Step 3. Cell A3 =Today()+ B3 as shown

Step 4. Drag down the column cells of Column A

This is an effective and efficient way.

Answer 5

My problem was that Google Sheets did not recognise what I was typing in as a date (24.05.2017) so when I changed it to 24/05/2017 it dragged consecutive dates immediately without having to highlight any other cells.

Answer 6

The mistake is that you don't select both first and second sell (click and hover over both). When both are selected (both are highlighted), then drag the blue dot of the lower cell (like in Excel).

Answer 7

On Google Sheets on MacBook Air,

1. I select the first cell only (1/1/2017)
2. Hold down the command key and drag the bottom right corner of the cell.
3. It fills with consecutive dates for me.

Answer 8

I too thought this doesn't work, but it does.

• First, set the locale for the sheet to your locale.
• Select the cells you want to create the series in and set the format to date.
• Enter the 2 dates that define the increment of the range.
• Select those 2 cells, then hover over the bottom right corner, you'll get a +, then drag that to the end of the range.

Voila! It autofills.

Answer 9

press alt and drag from the box in the bottom right corner