With longer date ranges ggplot adds an extra date before and after the date range. This is annoying as it seems there is no data for those dates (also not the range I selected).

The solutions offered work well with other type of charts, but for boxplots they "cut" the first and last boxplot, as shown here:

Any suggestions? Here is the code to generate these:

library(tidyverse)
# Sample data frame
dates <- seq(as.Date("2025-02-01"), by = "day", length.out = 30)
means <- rnorm(30, mean = 10, sd = 2) 
y <- unlist(lapply(means, function(mean) rnorm(20, mean = mean, sd = 1)))
df <- tibble(
  date = rep(dates, each = 20),
  y = y)

# First plot
ggplot(df, aes(x=date, y = y, group = date)) +
  geom_boxplot() +
  scale_x_date(date_labels = "%a \n%m/%d",
               date_breaks = "1 day",
               labels = scales::labels_wrap())


# Second plot
ggplot(df, aes(x=date, y = y, group = date)) +
  geom_boxplot() +
  scale_x_date(date_labels = "%a \n%m/%d",
               date_breaks = "1 day",
               labels = scales::labels_wrap(),
               expand = expansion(0),
               limits = c(min(df$date),
                          max(df$date)))

With longer date ranges ggplot adds an extra date before and after the date range. This is annoying as it seems there is no data for those dates (also not the range I selected).

The solutions offered work well with other type of charts, but for boxplots they "cut" the first and last boxplot, as shown here:

Any suggestions? Here is the code to generate these:

library(tidyverse)
# Sample data frame
dates <- seq(as.Date("2025-02-01"), by = "day", length.out = 30)
means <- rnorm(30, mean = 10, sd = 2) 
y <- unlist(lapply(means, function(mean) rnorm(20, mean = mean, sd = 1)))
df <- tibble(
  date = rep(dates, each = 20),
  y = y)

# First plot
ggplot(df, aes(x=date, y = y, group = date)) +
  geom_boxplot() +
  scale_x_date(date_labels = "%a \n%m/%d",
               date_breaks = "1 day",
               labels = scales::labels_wrap())


# Second plot
ggplot(df, aes(x=date, y = y, group = date)) +
  geom_boxplot() +
  scale_x_date(date_labels = "%a \n%m/%d",
               date_breaks = "1 day",
               labels = scales::labels_wrap(),
               expand = expansion(0),
               limits = c(min(df$date),
                          max(df$date)))

• r
• ggplot2

• 5 scale_x_date(date_labels = "%a \n%m/%d", date_breaks = "1 day", labels = scales::labels_wrap(), expand = expansion(add = c(0.1,0.1))) – Jon Spring Commented Feb 7 at 1:05
• Why does this have to be so hard?!?