How to Sort by Date in JavaScript?

Sorting by date is a common task when working with arrays in JavaScript. Whether you’re organizing blog posts, user logs, or events, knowing how to sort arrays by date will keep your data clean and correctly ordered.

If you have an array of ISO date strings, you can sort them like this:

const dates = [
  "2024-04-10",
  "2023-12-01",
  "2025-01-15"
];

dates.sort((a, b) => new Date(a) - new Date(b));

console.log(dates);

// Output: ["2023-12-01", "2024-04-10", "2025-01-15"]

When you’re dealing with objects (e.g. blog posts or events), you’ll usually sort by a property:

const posts = [
  { title: "Post 1", publishedAt: "2024-02-20" },
  { title: "Post 2", publishedAt: "2023-11-05" },
  { title: "Post 3", publishedAt: "2024-09-01" }
];

posts.sort((a, b) => new Date(a.publishedAt) - new Date(b.publishedAt));

console.log(posts);

/* Output:
[
  { title: "Post 2", publishedAt: "2023-11-05" },
  { title: "Post 1", publishedAt: "2024-02-20" },
  { title: "Post 3", publishedAt: "2024-09-01" }
]
*/

To reverse the sort order:

posts.sort((a, b) => new Date(b.publishedAt) - new Date(a.publishedAt));

Sorting by date in JavaScript is straightforward with new Date() and the sort() method. Whether you’re sorting simple date strings or complex objects, this approach will keep your arrays in the correct chronological order.

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