# Allow omitting log timestamps

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/allow-omitting-log-timestamps/102037>\
**Category:** Feature Requests\
**Created:** [1 November 2026 11:43 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/allow-omitting-log-timestamps/102037 "2026-11-01T11:43:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lombra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/22d042/32.png) [@Lombra](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Lombra)\
**Post date:** [1 November 2026 11:43 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/allow-omitting-log-timestamps/102037/1 "2026-11-01T11:43:31Z")

</div>

Hi,

I get my logs in `journald`, so having an option to omit Node-RED's own timestamps would be great.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Colin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/colin/32/17040_2.png) [@Colin](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Colin)\
**Post date:** [3 November 2026 16:39 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/allow-omitting-log-timestamps/102037/2 "2026-11-03T16:39:19Z")

</div>

You can use `-o cat` to strip off the system metadata, so something like  
`journalctl -f -u nodered -o cat`

```auto
$ journalctl -f -u nodered -o cat
Welcome to Node-RED
===================
3 Nov 16:40:16 - [info] Node-RED version: v5.0.9
3 Nov 16:40:16 - [info] Node.js version: v24.22.2
3 Nov 16:40:16 - [info] Linux 7.0.0-42-generic x64 LE
3 Nov 16:40:16 - [info] Loading palette nodes

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lombra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/22d042/32.png) [@Lombra](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Lombra)\
**Post date:** [3 November 2026 19:32 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/allow-omitting-log-timestamps/102037/3 "2026-11-03T19:32:58Z")

</div>

Thanks, but I need to do this at the source.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TotallyInformation](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/totallyinformation/32/31_2.png) [@TotallyInformation](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/TotallyInformation)\
**Post date:** [3 November 2026 20:07 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/allow-omitting-log-timestamps/102037/4 "2026-11-03T20:07:15Z")

</div>

> [@Lombra](#):
>
> I need to do this at the source

Node-RED does, of course, have the ability to create custom logs, so you might want to check that out?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lombra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/22d042/32.png) [@Lombra](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Lombra)\
**Post date:** [3 November 2026 22:15 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/allow-omitting-log-timestamps/102037/5 "2026-11-03T22:15:52Z")

</div>

Indeed, thanks. I only read the settings file documentation, which didn't mention anything about custom loggers, but I took the default console logger and cleaned it up a bit. This will do, for now. Would still like to see the option.

```js
    logging: {
        customLogger: {
            level: "info",
            metrics: false,
            audit: false
            handler: function(settings) {
                var util = require("@node-red/util");
                var verbose = settings.verbose;

                var levelNames = {
                    10: "fatal",
                    20: "error",
                    30: "warn",
                    40: "info",
                    50: "debug",
                    60: "trace",
                    98: "audit",
                    99: "metric"
                };

                return function(msg) {
                    var levelName = levelNames[msg.level];
                    var prefix = `[${levelName}] `;
                    if (msg.level == util.log.METRIC || msg.level == util.log.AUDIT) {
                        console.log(prefix + JSON.stringify(msg));
                    } else {
                        if (msg.type) {
                            prefix += `[${msg.type}:${msg.name || msg.id}] `;
                        }
                        if (verbose && msg.msg?.stack) {
                            console.log(prefix + msg.msg.stack);
                        } else {
                            var message = msg.msg;
                            try {
                                if (typeof message === 'object' && message.message) {
                                    message = message.message;
                                }
                            } catch(e) {
                                message = 'Exception trying to log: ' + util.inspect(message);
                            }

                            console.log(prefix + message);
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    },

```