Have new note automatically created with the current date

Support
1

Operating system

Windows

Joplin version

3.5.12

Editor

Rich Text Editor

What issue do you have?

After a month of migrating to Joplin, I realise that I need for every new note to have a creation date displayed as the first line in the text (not in the header as in Journal). I can do this by remembering to click on 'additional tool bar items' and 'Insert time' ( two clicks) but when busy this often gets missed.
Is it possible to have every new note automatically created with the current date?
I know nothing about markdown so have no idea how I could create this myself.

1 Like
2

This plugin maybe? Joplin Plugins - Templates

3

Thanks for the help, ‘Templates’ seems to be the answer. However I have read through the help notes on how to create the template and am no wiser. Can any one advise me in simple steps, how to create a default Template that automatically insert the date on the first line?

4

Hi,

You should be able to do this with an autohotkey macro.

Ask one of the ai's to create a macro that creates a new note in Joplin and presses the keystrokes to put in the current date.

Here is an example that should work.

AutoHotkey macro new note with date.

5

Using the templates plug-in

In the settings for the Template Plug-in look for

Are templates set with tags or stored in a notebook?

Set it to

Tag

Create a note in any notebook you have that makes sense to have a template stored there.

For the title type "My template"

On the first line of the note itself type {{date}}

Add the tag Template to the note (create it if you do not have it already).

You are now finished with editing the template.

You can now select the "My template" template when selecting Tools > Templates > Create note from template. This will create a new note called "My template" with the date as the first line. The current date automatically replaces the text {{date}} you put in the template.

If you titled the note {{date}} - My template then the new note would have the the date followed by " - My template" as its title.

You can add any variables or text to the template that you want.

If you want this as a default template:

Select Tools > Templates > Default Templates > Set Default Template

From the dropdown box select "My template" and choose the option for it to be a note template.

After that just pressing ALT+SHIFT+N will create a new note from your template. You can also change this key combination in Tools > Options > Keyboard shortcuts.

1 Like
6

Thanks for the help. Problem solved. Cheers

7

Just wanted to share my solution:
I disliked the default date format that was used when using {{date}} in the title which results in 20.02.2026 - My template when using my Joplin settings. Therefore, I have changed the template to always prepend the current date in the format: 2026-02-20 which is much nicer when sorting notes alphabetically.

Template

Title of template note is irrelevant. E.g. date in title

Template content:

---
template_title: "{{#custom_datetime}}Y-MM-DD{{/custom_datetime}} "

---

Tag: template

2 Likes
8

For anyone interested in using the custom_datetime tag, the below post lists many of the variables you can use to format how the date and time is displayed.

Reference - Template Time Date Variables

3 Likes