Most good themes have the ability to customize the default footer to add a shortcode such as [current_year] into their footer for dynamically adding the current year. However, if you are designing a custom footer through Elementor, instead of using the default footer in your theme, then the theme short code may not work.
Why do you want the current year? Basically it’s to give the illusion to your visitors that your site is fresh. For copyright purposes, technically the copyright is the date something is published, so for those who publish content on a regular basis, they may want a range of years to show the date first published up to and including the current year, such as 2011 – [current_year]. And in other cases a business may want the year their domain first went online.
Here are the few simple steps to use to insert current year into your Elementor custom footer [Note This works in Elementor Pro only]:
Add a text box to the section you want your Current Year displayed.
Under Content, click on the word “Dynamic” that is just above and to the right of the Visual Editor tabs.
Click on the Current Date and Time under the Site heading .
Under Settings, select Custom for Date Format and type “Y” (without the quotes) in the Custom Format.
Under the Advanced tab, you can place the text you want before and after the year, such as “Copyright © 2011 – ” in the Before box. You can then place text in the after box, maybe your domain or business name, for example.
17 thoughts on “How to add Dynamic “Current Year” into Footer in Elementor”
Great stuff, easiest way to get this done!!!
Thanks ZPat! That was so helpful!
Very nice solution!! It helped me a lot sense adding javascript crashes the site..
Thanks man 😀
Excelent, Great Tip, Thanks
Hi there, I was just looking for adding a dynamic year in my custom footer made with Elementor and Elementor – Header, Footer & Blocks (all free editions).
The problem is I don’t see this “dynamic” text/button in the text editor,
so is it only for “Pro” Elementor version or is it supposed to be available in the free version too ?
BTW , I updated the plugins to the last version, same issue.
Hi. Yes, I am using the Pro version.
ZPAT you are a legend!!!
Hi there!
Thanks for this solution! Sounds easy, but what if there is no “Site” section under Dynamic? I only see Post, Archive, Media and Author… in my Text Editor 🙁
Hi Nadja, sorry for the confusion. This is apparently only available in the Pro version.
Okay, thanks for the quick reply! 🙂
Thanks for this! I still had 2018 in my footer :-x. Never again!
Great post.Easy and problem free solution for footer copyright text
Thank you!!
Thanks, ZPat
What a great way to complete this. Thank you
Thx, it worked great
Making your own footer with Elementor’s Theme Builder is a premium feature and so are dynamic tags i think, with that said that is a pretty lame/stupid way to add the current year.
You can just use the free Header & Footer plugin (i think made by Brainstorm Force) and you can build the header and footer with Elementor just like before, but this plugin also comes with some dedicated widgets, one of them being Copyright and the default text it has in it includes the shortcode for the year.
What i’m saying is that there is a better AND free way to do this.
I always used to use that plugin, but then we bought Elementor Pro so i thought i didn’t need it anymore, who would have thought Elementor Pro was worse at this than a free plugin.