hour

The hour() function returns an integer (number) between 0 and 23 that corresponds to the hour of its date argument.

hour(date)

hour() (and its sibling functions minute, day, date, month, and year) is useful for manipulating dates within Notion formulas.

Example Formulas

hour(now()) // Output: 11 (When current time was 11:25 AM)

// Assume a propety called Date with a current date of June 24, 2022 11:29 AM
hour(prop("Date")) // Output: 11

hour() can be used with other functions such as dateSubtract to change the value of a date, like so:

// Assume the value of now() is June 24, 2022 11:34 AM
dateSubtract(now(), hour(now()), "hours")
// Output: June 24, 2022 12:34 AM

You can take this concept even further to “hard-code” any date into a Notion formula. See the section on Hard-Coding Dates into Formulas within the now article for more on how to do this.

Example Database

This example database groups events in a Renaissance Faire by their time of day – Morning, Afternoon, and Evening. These three options are returned by the Time of Day formula property.

View and Duplicate Database

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“Time of Day” Property Formula

// Compressed
if(hour(prop("Date")) >= 18, "🌔 Evening", if(hour(prop("Date")) >= 12, "🌤 Afternoon", "🌄 Morning"))

// Expanded
if(
    hour(
        prop("Date")
    ) >= 18,
    "🌔 Evening",
    if(
        hour(
            prop("Date")
        ) >= 12,
        "🌤 Afternoon",
        "🌄 Morning"
    )
)

Here, we use a nested if statement to first check if the hour() value of the Date property is greater than or equal to 18 (which is 6:00 PM in 12-hour time).

If yes, the formula returns “🌔 Evening”.

If not, we then check if the hour() value is greater than or equal to 12 (noon in 12-hour time).

If yes, the formula returns “🌤 Afternoon”. If no, it returns “🌄 Morning”.

From there, we can set the database view to Group by the output of this formula property:

Other formula components used in this example:

if – Thomas Frank

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largerEq – Thomas Frank

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