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Convert a GMT datetime to local timezone datetime

In Java 8 I need a way to get the local datetime (GMT+1) from a GMT datetime in ISO 8601 format.
A simple example:
Client sends me (Server) this datetime "2020-01-11T23:00:00.000Z"
Client sends me this when the user choose the 12 Jan 2020 from the datepicker. Is the 12 Jan for GMT+1 but the day before for GMT.
For the reason above then I know that for me this datetime is not the 11 Jan 2020 but 12 Jan 2020 in GMT+1.
So I need this value "2020-01-12T00:00:00.000"
To be precise I don't need to print this with simpleDateFormat but just covert "2020-01-11T23:00:00.000Z" to "2020-01-12T00:00:00.000" in a java.util.Date class field
Thanks.

The problem is that the source system took the pure date value, but added time at midnight, then converted that to UTC, but you want the pure date value in a java.util.Date, which by default prints in your local time zone, i.e. the JVM's default time zone.
So, you have to parse the string, revert the value back to the time zone of the source system, the treat that local time as a time in your own JVM's default time zone.
You can do that like this, showing all the intermediate types:
String sourceStr = "2020-01-11T23:00:00.000Z";
ZoneId sourceTimeZone = ZoneOffset.ofHours(1); // Use real zone of source, e.g. ZoneId.of("Europe/Paris");
// Parse Zulu date string as zoned date/time in source time zone
Instant sourceInstant = Instant.parse(sourceStr);
ZonedDateTime sourceZoned = sourceInstant.atZone(sourceTimeZone);
// Convert to util.Date in local time zone
ZonedDateTime localZoned = sourceZoned.withZoneSameLocal(ZoneId.systemDefault());
Instant localInstant = localZoned.toInstant();
Date localDate = Date.from(localInstant); // <== This is your desired result
// Print value in ISO 8601 format
String localStr = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS").format(localDate);
System.out.println(localStr);
Output
2020-01-12T00:00:00.000
The code can of course be merged together:
String input = "2020-01-11T23:00:00.000Z";
Date date = Date.from(Instant.parse(input).atZone(ZoneOffset.ofHours(1))
.withZoneSameLocal(ZoneId.systemDefault()).toInstant());
System.out.println(date);
Output
Sun Jan 12 00:00:00 EST 2020
As you can see, the date value is correct, even though I'm in the US Eastern time zone.

Converting java.util.Date to java.sql.Timestamp results into wrong value

Server side code (server timezone is UTC):-
Date aDate = new Date();
java.sql.Timestamp aTimestamp = new java.sql.Timestamp(aDate.getTime());
Client side (Mobile app, timezone GMT +5:30):-
Hitting a service request which runs above code on server side
The issue is when i debugged on server, found following values :-
aDate.getTime() prints to -> 1470472883877 milliseconds i.e., Sat Aug 06 2016 14:11:23 GMT+0530
but
aTimestamp prints to -> (java.sql.Timestamp) 2016-08-06 08:41:44.109
It's kinda weird, i've no idea what's going on in conversion !! please help

UTC and GMT are formats.
java.util.Date and java.sql.Timestamp are independent of the timezone. They store a long time in ms for representing their inner state.
For information, Calendar is timezone aware.
So with Date or Timestamp, to differentiate GMT or UTC format in an output, you have to use a formater which outputs the date into string by being aware the timezone.
In your output : 2016-08-06 08:41:44.109, you don't use a formater which is aware of the timezone. It's probably the result of a toString() on the java.sql.Timestamp instance or something of similar.
What you consider as a conversion is not a conversion but a formatting since the timestamp stays the same between the two objects.
If you want to display in the UTC format, use the appropriate formater with a
SimpleDateFormat for example :
SimpleDateFormat dt= new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss z");
dt.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
String dateStringInUTC = dt.format(new Date(yourSqlTimestamp.getTime()));

The following is probably what you are looking for:
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(Locale.GERMANY); // use your locale here
Timestamp aTimestamp = new Timestamp(cal.getTimeInMillis());
System.out.println(aTimestamp);
System.out.println(cal.getTime());
And the output:
2016-08-06 19:12:54.613
Sat Aug 06 19:12:54 CEST 2016

SimpleDateFormat ignores TimeZone

I have read a bunch of posts on this, but, I am obviously missing something. I have date string, and a time zone. I am trying to instantiate a date object as follows:
final SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
java.util.Date dateObj = sdf.parse("2013-10-06 13:30:00");
System.out.println(dateObj);
What is printed is:
Sun Oct 06 09:30:00 EDT 2013
What I want is a date object in UTC format. Not one converted to EDT. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks.

This is because a Date object does not store any timezone information. Date basically only stores the number of milliseconds since the epoch (Jan. 1, 1970). By default Date will use the timezone associated with the JVM. In order to preserve timezone information you should continue using the DateFormat object that you've already got.
See DateFormat#format(Date): http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/text/DateFormat.html#format(java.util.Date)
The following should give you what you're looking for:
System.out.println(sdf.format(dateObj));

Try below code, you'll see that the date parsed 1st time is different from the one parsed after setting timezone. Actually the date is parsed as expected in right timezone. It s while printing it gives you get the machines's default TZ.
You could have printed the dateObj.toGMTString() to check the same, but that is deprecated.
final SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
Date dateObj = sdf.parse("2013-10-06 13:30:00");
System.out.println(dateObj.toString());
sdf.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
dateObj = sdf.parse("2013-10-06 13:30:00");
System.out.println(dateObj.toString());

Read date without timezone information

I receive datetime strings with no timezone qualifier in the format:
2014-01-30 07:48:25
I know that the strings are produced by a server in Florida. Is there a way using java.util or joda Date libs to specify that the date is from Florida then parse it with the appripriate UTC offset, depending on where it falls in the calendar for daylight savings time?

Assuming you are referring to the part of Florida following EST, you can set the timezone for SimpleDateFormat and set your TimeZone to EST.
SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
format.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("America/New_York"));
Date date = format.parse("2014-01-30 07:48:25");
Your parsed date now can be utilized by your default TimeZone of the system (or set it to your liking as we did in the first place).
TimeZone.setDefault(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
System.out.println(date);
The output I get for your date offset to UTC:
Thu Jan 30 12:48:25 UTC 2014

You can provide a "source timezone" to an instance of SimpleDateFormat and the to-be-parsed date string is then converted to your local/default timezone.
TimeZone timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("America/New_York")
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss")
sdf.setTimeZone(getTimeZone(source));
Be careful when providing the time zone name. TimeZone will silently fail over to GMT if you pass in a string it does not understand as a timezone.

Just to complete previous answers. The same funcionality with Joda-Time:
DateTime dateTime = DateTime.parse("2014-01-30 07:48:25", DateTimeFormat
.forPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss")
.withZone(DateTimeZone.forID("America/New_York")));
System.out.println(dateTime);
System.out.println(dateTime.withZone(DateTimeZone.UTC));
System.out.println(dateTime.withZone(DateTimeZone.forID("Europe/Madrid")));
---
2014-01-30T07:48:25.000-05:00
2014-01-30T12:48:25.000Z
2014-01-30T13:48:25.000+01:00

Calendar.getTime() not returning UTC date if TimeZone is defined

I have done this for my Calendar instance to return Date in UTC timezone:
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:SS Z");
TimeZone tz = TimeZoneUtil.getTimeZone(StringPool.UTC);
formatter.setTimeZone(tz);
Date dtStart = null;
Date dtEnd = null;
try{
dtStart = formatter.parse(formatter.format(startDate.getTime()));
dtEnd = formatter.parse(formatter.format(endDate.getTime()));
}catch (Exception e) {
e.getStackTrace();
}
It works fine till I format calendar timestamp to return a string date with required timezone but when I parse that string date to Date date, it again picks up local timezone?
I need to store Date object in UTC timezone.
Any help will be highly appreciated!

You can use this:
Date localTime = new Date();
//creating DateFormat for converting time from local timezone to GMT
DateFormat converter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy:HH:mm:ss");
//getting GMT timezone, you can get any timezone e.g. UTC
converter.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
System.out.println("local time : " + localTime);;
System.out.println("time in GMT : " + converter.format(localTime));
It will give:
local time: Fri Jun 21 11:55:00 UTC 2013
time in GMT : 21/06/2013:11:55:00
I hope it will help.
Cheers.

Date object in java will always store the values in the host machine (your system) time zone information.
This is from javadoc :
Although the Date class is intended to reflect coordinated universal time (UTC), it may not do so exactly, depending on the host environment of the Java Virtual Machine.
You should trying using Joda Time which is much advanced.

Instead of setting TimeZone in multiple places, it is a good idea to set timezone using -Duser.timezone=GMT or PST.
And, you can easily test how Java deals with timezone and getTime() ignores timezone with an actual example:
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ"); // print with timezone
TimeZone timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone(ZoneId.of("GMT"));
TimeZone.setDefault(timeZone); // set system timezone as GMT
sdf.setTimeZone(timeZone); // formatter also has a timezone
Date date = new Date();
System.out.println(date); // system says GMT date
System.out.println(date.getTime()); // only prints time in milliseconds after January 1, 1970 00:00:00 GMT
System.out.println(sdf.format(date));
timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone(ZoneId.of("America/Los_Angeles"));
TimeZone.setDefault(timeZone); // set system timezone as GMT
sdf.setTimeZone(timeZone); // formatter also has a timezone
date = new Date();
System.out.println(date);
System.out.println(date.getTime()); // prints the same value as above, "not including timezone offset"
System.out.println(sdf.format(date));
// GMT and PDT times are same as getTime() only returns time in ms since UTC for the day ignoring timezone which is mostly used for formatting
Wed Mar 14 22:43:43 GMT 2018
1521067423108
2018-03-14T22:43:43+0000
Wed Mar 14 15:43:43 PDT 2018
1521067423125 // not includes timezone in getTime()
2018-03-14T15:43:43-0700 // formatting looks fine

The good explanation of why Date object taking Current time zone value ,
please refer this SO answer
EDIT.
here I am gonna add some important part of that answers.
java.util.Date is has no specific time zone, although its value is most commonly thought of in relation to UTC. What makes you think it's in local time?
To be precise: the value within a java.util.Date is the number of milliseconds since the Unix epoch, which occurred at midnight January 1st 1970, UTC. The same epoch could also be described in other time zones, but the traditional description is in terms of UTC. As it's a number of milliseconds since a fixed epoch, the value within java.util.Date is the same around the world at any particular instant, regardless of local time zone.