Get yesterday's date using Date

Update

There has been recent improvements in datetime API with JSR-310.

Instant now = Instant.now();
Instant yesterday = now.minus(1, ChronoUnit.DAYS);
System.out.println(now);
System.out.println(yesterday);

https://ideone.com/91M1eU

Outdated answer

You are subtracting the wrong number:

Use Calendar instead:

private Date yesterday() {
    final Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
    cal.add(Calendar.DATE, -1);
    return cal.getTime();
}

Then, modify your method to the following:

private String getYesterdayDateString() {
        DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss");
        return dateFormat.format(yesterday());
}

---

See

• IDEOne Demo

You can do following:

private Date getMeYesterday(){
     return new Date(System.currentTimeMillis()-24*60*60*1000);
}

Note: if you want further backward date multiply number of day with 24*60*60*1000 for example:

private Date getPreviousWeekDate(){
     return new Date(System.currentTimeMillis()-7*24*60*60*1000);
}

Similarly, you can get future date by adding the value to System.currentTimeMillis(), for example:

private Date getMeTomorrow(){
     return new Date(System.currentTimeMillis()+24*60*60*1000);
}

   Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
   DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
   System.out.println("Today's date is "+dateFormat.format(cal.getTime()));

   cal.add(Calendar.DATE, -1);
   System.out.println("Yesterday's date was "+dateFormat.format(cal.getTime()));  

Use Calender Api