Converting a NSDate to a String and back again is easy with a few lines of code.

NSDate to String

let date = NSDate() // Get Todays Date
let dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
dateFormatter.dateFormat = "dd-MM-yyyy"
let stringDate: String = dateFormatter.string(from: date as Date)
print(stringDate)

String to NSDate

var dateString = "30-03-2016"
var dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
// Our date format needs to match our input string format
dateFormatter.dateFormat = "dd-MM-yyyy"

// The below line is optional, as NSDate uses the GMT +0 timezone by default
// The output day may be slightly off due your timezone
// This will align it with the NSDate timezone default GMT + 0
// Keep in mind users of your app all have different timezones and this will make the date use GMT+0 timezone instead of a users local one

//dateFormatter.timeZone = NSTimeZone(abbreviation: "GMT+0:00") as TimeZone!

var dateFromString = dateFormatter.date(from: dateString)
print(dateString)

Easy peasy – just when converting a String to NSDate remmber the dateFormatter must match the same format as your String! You can find a cheat sheet on the date formatter dateFormat codes here.