$currentDate

The $currentDate operator is used to set the value of a field to the current date and time. This operator is useful for automatically updating a field with the current timestamp when a document is inserted or updated.

Parameters

• field: The field to update with the current date and time.

• type: (optional) Specifies the BSON type to use for the current date. Can be either date or timestamp.

Example (MongoDB Shell)

The following example demonstrates how to use the $currentDate operator to set the lastModified field to the current date and time when a new document is inserted.

Create sample documents

db.users.insert({
  name: "John Doe",
  email: "[e-mail]"
})

Query example

db.users.updateOne(
  { name: "John Doe" },
  { $currentDate: { lastModified: true } }
)

View updated document

db.users.findOne({ name: "John Doe" })

Output

{
  _id: ObjectId('...'),
  name: 'John Doe',
  email: '[e-mail]',
  lastModified: ISODate('2025-10-25T22:50:29.963Z')
}

Code examples

To view a code example for using the $currentDate command, choose the tab for the language that you want to use:

Node.js

const { MongoClient } = require('mongodb');

async function updateUserWithCurrentDate() {
  const client = await MongoClient.connect('mongodb://<username>:<password>@<cluster-endpoint>:27017/?tls=true&tlsCAFile=global-bundle.pem&replicaSet=rs0&readPreference=secondaryPreferred&retryWrites=false');
  const db = client.db('test');
  const users = db.collection('users');

  await users.updateOne(
    { name: 'John Doe' },
    { $currentDate: { lastModified: true } }
  );

  console.log('User updated with current date');
  client.close();
}

updateUserWithCurrentDate();

Python

from pymongo import MongoClient

def update_user_with_current_date():
    client = MongoClient('mongodb://<username>:<password>@<cluster-endpoint>:27017/?tls=true&tlsCAFile=global-bundle.pem&replicaSet=rs0&readPreference=secondaryPreferred&retryWrites=false')
    db = client['test']
    users = db.users

    result = users.update_one(
        {'name': 'John Doe'},
        {'$currentDate': {'lastModified': True}}
    )

    print('User updated with current date')
    client.close()

update_user_with_current_date()