The YEAR function in Google Sheets is a simple yet powerful tool that extracts the year component from a given date. Whether you’re organizing data or performing calculations involving different years, this function streamlines the process by allowing you to easily retrieve the year in a numerically viable format.

Syntax

YEAR(date)

• date: This is the date from which you want to extract the year. It can be a cell reference containing a date, a date value, or a function returning a date.

Example #1

YEAR("2023-10-05")

This function call will extract the year from the date provided, which is 2023 in this case.

Example #2

YEAR(A1)

Assuming cell A1 contains the date 2022-08-15, this function will return 2022 as the extracted year.

Example #3

YEAR(TODAY())

This function will return the current year based on today’s date, which might be 2023 depending on when the function is executed.

Error handling

• VALUE!: This error occurs if the provided date is not recognized as a valid date format.
• NUM!: This error appears if the input is not a number or a date serial number in Excel’s date system.
• REF!: This can occur if the cell reference you are using doesn’t exist or is invalid.

Conclusion

The YEAR function is essential for anyone working with dates in Google Sheets, providing a quick and effective way to isolate the year from a date value. By using this function, users can enhance their data analysis capabilities and streamline workflows that depend on date manipulations.