Question: My goal is to use the BigQuery CLI to only list tables that were created in BigQuery after yesterday's date. 

[The docs specify to use the -j and --min\_creation\_time parameters to filter table list results by date](https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/reference/bq-cli-reference#top_of_page). When I run the below command on today's date of 5/14/2020 for yesterday's date (5/13/2020):

```
bq ls --format=prettyjson -j --min_creation_time 1589353200000 pivotal-tower-XXXX:XXXXXXXXX

```

I get: BigQuery error in ls operation: Cannot determine project described by pivotal-tower-XXXX:XXXXXXXXX.

However, if I run the same command without the -j and min\_creation\_time parameters:

```
bq ls --format=prettyjson  pivotal-tower-261700:113553943 

```

I get a list of tables for the project I have specified. Can anyone see what I am doing wrong? Thanks!

Answer: 
`bq ls` -j option means to list jobs, not tables

> 
> --jobs or -j
> 
> 
> When specified, list jobs. The default value is false. By default, you are limited to 100,000 results.
> 
> 
> 

To make the creation time more readable, you can also consider to run a query over INFORMATION\_SCHEMA

```
bq query --nouse_legacy_sql "
  SELECT * FROM yourDataset.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES 
  WHERE creation_time >= TIMESTAMP '2020-1-1' "

```
In addition to @Yun Zhang answer you can also use `__TABLES_SUMMARY__` representing meta-table that contains information about the tables and views in a particular dataset, available in *Standard* and *Legacy* SQL whereas `INFORMATION_SCHEMA` metadata view only supports *Standart* SQL (more information about known limitations you can find [here](https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/information-schema-intro#limitations) ).

Assuming the above mentioned, you can construct the query fetching list of tables and then supply `bq query` command line with this query as was explained in @Yun Zhang answer:

```
SELECT * FROM `<User_Dataset>.__TABLES_SUMMARY__` where creation_time >=UNIX_MILLIS(TIMESTAMP "2020-01-01")

```