When was Taylor Swift’s “august” originally released?

Taylor Swift’s “august” was originally released on July 24, 2020. It arrived as part of Folklore, the album Swift announced and released digitally with almost no advance warning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The date is sometimes mistaken for August 1 because the song has become an annual August tradition. August 1 is the date when fans commonly revive the track online, but it is not the song’s release date. The song entered the world one week earlier, when the complete Folklore album became available.

Its release context helped shape the track’s identity. Folklore was Swift’s first album centered heavily on fictional characters and imagined narratives, rather than only autobiographical songwriting. “august” became especially prominent later because its title and late-summer imagery naturally fit recurring seasonal listening.