Notes By default, the date-time is displayed in long-date and long-time formats for the system locale. When you pipe a date to cmdlets that expect string input, such as the Add-Content cmdlet, Windows PowerShell converts the DateTime object to a string before adding it to the file. The default ToString() format is short date and long time. To specify an alternate format, use the -Format or -UFormat parameters of Get-Date . Here are the valid UFormat specifiers, each of which must be preceded by % , for example, Get-Date -UFormat %Y%m%d Format specifier Meaning Example A Day of the week - full name Monday a Day of the week - abbreviated name Mon B Month name - full January b Month name - abbreviated Jan C Century 20 for 2006 c Date and time - abbreviated Fri Jun 16 10:31:27 2006 D Date in mm/dd/yy format 06/14/06 d Day of the month - 2 digits 05 e Day of the month - digit preceded by a space <space>5 G