JavaScript - Get minutes between two dates

If I have two dates, how can I use JavaScript to get the difference between the two dates in minutes?

You may checkout this code:

var today = new Date();
var Christmas = new Date(today.getFullYear() + "-12-25");
var diffMs = (Christmas - today); // milliseconds between now & Christmas
var diffDays = Math.floor(diffMs / 86400000); // days
var diffHrs = Math.floor((diffMs % 86400000) / 3600000); // hours
var diffMins = Math.round(((diffMs % 86400000) % 3600000) / 60000); // minutes
alert(diffDays + " days, " + diffHrs + " hours, " + diffMins + " minutes until Christmas =)");

or var diffMins = Math.floor((... to discard seconds if you don't want to round minutes.

Subtracting two Date objects gives you the difference in milliseconds, e.g.:

var diff = Math.abs(new Date('2011/10/09 12:00') - new Date('2011/10/09 00:00'));

Math.abs is used to be able to use the absolute difference (so new Date('2011/10/09 00:00') - new Date('2011/10/09 12:00') gives the same result).

Dividing the result by 1000 gives you the number of seconds. Dividing that by 60 gives you the number of minutes. To round to whole minutes, use Math.floor or Math.ceil:

var minutes = Math.floor((diff/1000)/60);

In this example the result will be 720.

[edit 2022] Added a more complete demo snippet, using the aforementioned knowledge.

See also

untilXMas();

function difference2Parts(milliseconds) {
  const secs = Math.floor(Math.abs(milliseconds) / 1000);
  const mins = Math.floor(secs / 60);
  const hours = Math.floor(mins / 60);
  const days = Math.floor(hours / 24);
  const millisecs = Math.floor(Math.abs(milliseconds)) % 1000;
  const multiple = (term, n) => n !== 1 ? `${n} ${term}s` : `1 ${term}`;

  return {
    days: days,
    hours: hours % 24,
    hoursTotal: hours,
    minutesTotal: mins,
    minutes: mins % 60,
    seconds: secs % 60,
    secondsTotal: secs,
    milliSeconds: millisecs,
    get diffStr() {
      return `${multiple(`day`, this.days)}, ${
        multiple(`hour`, this.hours)}, ${
        multiple(`minute`, this.minutes)} and ${
        multiple(`second`, this.seconds)}`;
    },
    get diffStrMs() {
      return `${this.diffStr.replace(` and`, `, `)} and ${
        multiple(`millisecond`, this.milliSeconds)}`;
    },
  };
}

function untilXMas() {
  const nextChristmas = new Date(Date.UTC(new Date().getFullYear(), 11, 25));
  const report = document.querySelector(`#nextXMas`);
  const diff = () => {
    const diffs = difference2Parts(nextChristmas - new Date());
    report.innerHTML = `Awaiting next XMas 🙂 (${
      diffs.diffStrMs.replace(/(\d+)/g, a => `<b>${a}</b>`)})<br>
      <br>In other words, until next XMas lasts&hellip;<br>
      In minutes: <b>${diffs.minutesTotal}</b><br>In hours: <b>${
      diffs.hoursTotal}</b><br>In seconds: <b>${diffs.secondsTotal}</b>`;
    setTimeout(diff, 200);
  };
  return diff();
}

body {
  font: 14px/17px normal verdana, arial;
  margin: 1rem;
}

<div id="nextXMas"></div>

var startTime = new Date('2012/10/09 12:00'); 
var endTime = new Date('2013/10/09 12:00');
var difference = endTime.getTime() - startTime.getTime(); // This will give difference in milliseconds
var resultInMinutes = Math.round(difference / 60000);

A simple function to perform this calculation:

function getMinutesBetweenDates(startDate, endDate) {
    var diff = endDate.getTime() - startDate.getTime();
    return (diff / 60000);
}

That's should show the difference between the two dates in minutes. Try it in your browser:

const currDate = new Date('Tue Feb 13 2018 13:04:58 GMT+0200 (EET)')
const oldDate  = new Date('Tue Feb 13 2018 12:00:58 GMT+0200 (EET)')


(currDate - oldDate) / 60000 // 64

This problem is solved easily with moment.js, like this example:

var difference = mostDate.diff(minorDate, "minutes");

The second parameter can be changed for another parameters, see the moment.js documentation.

e.g.: "days", "hours", "minutes", etc.

http://momentjs.com/docs/

The CDN for moment.js is available here:

https://cdnjs.com/libraries/moment.js

Thanks.

EDIT:

mostDate and minorDate should be a moment type.

EDIT 2:

For those who are reading my answer in 2020+, momentjs is now a legacy project.

If you are still looking for a well-known library to do this job, I would recommend date-fns.

// How many minutes are between 2 July 2014 12:07:59 and 2 July 2014 12:20:00?
var result = differenceInMinutes(
  new Date(2014, 6, 2, 12, 20, 0),
  new Date(2014, 6, 2, 12, 7, 59)
)
//=> 12

For those that like to work with small numbers

const today = new Date();
const endDate = new Date(startDate.setDate(startDate.getDate() + 7));
const days = parseInt((endDate - today) / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24));
const hours = parseInt(Math.abs(endDate - today) / (1000 * 60 * 60) % 24);
const minutes = parseInt(Math.abs(endDate.getTime() - today.getTime()) / (1000 * 60) % 60);
const seconds = parseInt(Math.abs(endDate.getTime() - today.getTime()) / (1000) % 60); 

You can do as follows:

1. Get difference of dates(Difference will be in milliseconds)
2. Convert milliseconds into minutes i-e ms/1000/60

The Code:

let dateOne = new Date("2020-07-10");
let dateTwo = new Date("2020-07-11");

let msDifference =  dateTwo - dateOne;
let minutes = Math.floor(msDifference/1000/60);
console.log("Minutes between two dates =",minutes);

Here's some fun I had solving something similar in node.

function formatTimeDiff(date1, date2) {
  return Array(3)
    .fill([3600, date1.getTime() - date2.getTime()])
    .map((v, i, a) => {
      a[i+1] = [a[i][0]/60, ((v[1] / (v[0] * 1000)) % 1) * (v[0] * 1000)];
      return `0${Math.floor(v[1] / (v[0] * 1000))}`.slice(-2);
    }).join(':');
}

const millis = 1000;
const utcEnd = new Date(1541424202 * millis);
const utcStart = new Date(1541389579 * millis);
const utcDiff = formatTimeDiff(utcEnd, utcStart);

console.log(`Dates:
  Start   : ${utcStart}
  Stop    : ${utcEnd}
  Elapsed : ${utcDiff}
  `);

/*
Outputs:

Dates:
  Start   : Mon Nov 05 2018 03:46:19 GMT+0000 (UTC)
  Stop    : Mon Nov 05 2018 13:23:22 GMT+0000 (UTC)
  Elapsed : 09:37:02
*/

You can see it in action at https://repl.it/@GioCirque/TimeSpan-Formatting

The following code worked for me,

function timeDiffCalc(dateNow,dateFuture) {
    var newYear1 = new Date(dateNow);
    var newYear2 = new Date(dateFuture);

        var dif = (newYear2 - newYear1);
        var dif = Math.round((dif/1000)/60);
        console.log(dif);

}

this will work

duration = moment.duration(moment(end_time).diff(moment(start_time)))