Now
→ DateBare-name Core form of Platform.Function.Now — returns the current server date/time as a Date object. Requires Platform.Load.
Syntax
Now([useContextTime])Parameters
| Name | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
useContextTime |
boolean | No | When true, returns the time the triggering send or activity was initiated. When false or omitted, returns the current system clock time. |
Description
Now() is the bare-name Core-library form of Platform.Function.Now(). It requires Platform.Load("core", "1.1.5") before use — the bare name is undefined until the load has run.
It behaves identically to Platform.Function.Now(): same arguments, same return value. Use the qualified Platform.Function.Now() form when you do not already have a Platform.Load call in scope.
Return value
Returns a Date object (runtime typeof is "object", Object.prototype.toString reports [object Date], .constructor === Date, with working Date accessors such as getFullYear(), getMonth(), and getTime() — identical to new Date()). The one anomaly is that instanceof Date returns false, due to the engine-wide instanceof-on-builtins bug — test with .constructor === Date, not instanceof. The time is in the SFMC account’s configured timezone (Central by default). When concatenated to a string it coerces to an RFC 2822-style value such as "Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:18:24 GMT-06:00".
The official docs describe the return as an RFC 2822-compliant date-time string, but the runtime returns a Date object; it only appears as an RFC 2822 string when coerced during output.
Example
Platform.Load("core", "1.1.5");
var current = Now(); // e.g. "Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:18:24 GMT-06:00"
Write(current.getFullYear()); // 2026