How to mass convert text to date in Excel?

Supposing you have a list of dates, but these dates are in text format as below screenshot shown, now you want to convert these text dates to real date, how can you quickly solve it? This tutorial is going to tell you the quick tricks to mass convert the texts to dates in Excel.

Convert text to date format with formula

Convert text to date format with Kutools for Excel

Convert text to date format with formula

To convert the text to date, you can use formula =DATEVALUE().

1. Select a blank cell next to the text data, then type the formula =DATEVALUE(A2), (A2 is the text data), then press Enter keyand then drag autofill handle down to apply this formula to the cells. See screenshots:

2. Keep selecting the returned digits and right click to select Format Cells from the context menu, and in the Format Cells dialog, under Number tab, select Date, and then select a date type from the right list as you need, see screenshot:

3. Click OK. Now the text dates are converted to dates.

But with the formula =DATEVALUE(), you cannot convert some special text dates to dates, such as Friday, Aug 21,2015, Dec 12,2015 and 5/18/14,13:43. But with below handy tool, you can convert all these texts to dates.

Convert text to date format with Kutools for Excel

If you have Kutools for Excel installed, you can apply its Convert to Date utility to quickly mass convert texts to dates.

After free installing Kutools for Excel, please do as below:

1. Select the text dates you want convert to dates, and click Kutools > Content > Convert to Date, see screenshot:

2. Then a Convert to Date dialog pops out to show how many text dates have been successfully converted to dates. See screenshot:

3. Close the Convert to Date dialog.