How to force MM/DD/YYYY date format for CSV/Excel downloads without breaking filtering and sorting?

Looker Q&A Looker
, , ,
1

I am trying to force a US date format (MM/DD/YYYY) for some Explores and dashboards. However, every standard method I try seems to break another critical feature:

  1. Using the html parameter: The dates look perfect in the Looker UI, but when users download the data as a CSV, Looker ignores the HTML formatting and dumps the raw database format (YYYY-MM-DD).

  2. Converting to a String via SQL: If I use type: string and format it in SQL (e.g., MM/DD/YYYY), the CSV downloads perfectly. However, this completely breaks native date filtering (no more calendar pickers or “past 30 days” options) and breaks sorting (it sorts alphabetically, so 01/01/2027 incorrectly comes before 12/31/2026).

Is there a standard Looker design pattern or best practice to get clean US date formats in raw downloads without breaking dashboard filters or table sorting?

2 Likes