How To Customize the Clock in Your Mac Menu Bar

Your Mac shows the date and time at the top right. You can customize this to only show the time and whether to include things like AM/PM, seconds, and the day of the week. This is more than just a display as it acts as a button for Notifications Center and Do No Disturb.
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Video Summary

In This Tutorial

How to customize the clock in the Mac menu bar, including its role as a button, why it sometimes grays out, where the settings live, the available display options, the analog clock, and how language and region settings affect it.

Intro

  • The clock at the upper right of the Mac menu bar shows the time and optionally the day and date, and can be customized to some extent though not removed entirely.

The Clock Is a Button

  • The clock also acts as a button, opening Notification Center and its widgets when clicked and dismissing them when clicked again, while Option-clicking toggles Do Not Disturb for the default focus mode.

Why Is the Clock Sometimes Gray?

  • The clock dims when Do Not Disturb is on, but dragging the Focus widget from Control Center into the menu bar provides a separate indicator so the clock no longer grays out while still allowing Option-click to toggle Do Not Disturb.

Where Are the Clock Controls?

  • In macOS Ventura the settings are reached through the Apple menu and System Settings under Control Center, where a Menu Bar Only section lists the Clock with a Clock Options button, rather than the location used in macOS Monterey.

Menu Bar Clock Options

  • Clock Options let you show the date never, always, or only when space allows, optionally show the day of the week, use a 24-hour clock, hide AM and PM, flash the time separators each second, and display seconds, so the clock can be minimized to just a few digits and a separator.

Minimize Into an Analog Clock

  • Switching to the Analog Clock shows a small circle with two hands about the size of the other menu bar buttons, still opening Notification Center and toggling Do Not Disturb, though it does not dim.

Language and Region Settings

  • The clock follows the settings in General then Language & Region, so changing the language affects how the month and AM/PM are shown, and choosing a different calendar changes how the month and day are represented.

Summary

The Mac menu bar clock doubles as a button for Notification Center and Do Not Disturb, which is why it can gray out, and its appearance is customized through Clock Options in Control Center settings. Options include the date, day of week, 24-hour time, seconds, flashing separators, and an analog clock, while language and calendar settings in Language & Region also shape its display.

Video Transcript

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can customize the clock at the top right corner of your Mac screen.
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At the upper right hand corner of your Mac screen in the Menu Bar you should see a clock. This will tell you the current time and may give you more information like the day of the week and the date. You can customize, to some extent, what the clock shows. The one thing you can't do is get rid of the clock entirely. This is because it acts as a Button as well as a clock. If you click on it it will bring up Notification Center and Notification Center Widgets. Click on it again to dismiss it. In addition, if you hold the Option Key down and click on it it will turn on Do Not Disturb mode. Whatever your default focus mode is. Option clicking will turn that Off. 
Notice how the clock changes to be grayed out or dimmed when Do Not Disturb is turned On. If you'd rather not have that go to Control Center right here and then take the Focus Widget, in Control Center, drag that into the Menu Bar. Once you have this other indicator that Do Not Disturb is on the clock is no longer the indicator. You can still Option click on it to turn Do Not Disturb on or off but it will no longer dim to indicate that it is on. 
Now to customize what the clock shows, in macOS Ventura, you go to a different place than where you would have gone in macOS Monterey before. You go to the Apple Menu and to System Settings. System Settings is, of course, different than System Preferences. The Menu Bar clock settings can be found if you go to Control Center. Of course in Control Center it is just this one icon here in the Mac Menu Bar. But Apple has grouped all of these buttons into Control Center here in System Settings. So you are going to see things like Control Center modules here and you could determine what goes into the Menu Bar and what does not. But if you scroll down you'll find a Menu Bar Only Section. The first item there is Clock. You can't turn it On or Off but there is a big button for Clock Options. Click that and now you have all the options to change what this looks like. 
The first one is whether or not to show the date. There are 3 options here. One is to Never Show. Another is to Always Show and the third is only when space allows. So if, sometimes, you're in apps that have very large menus or you have a lot of buttons here on the right side of the Menu Bar then the date will disappear if the left side of the menu and the right side of the menu meet. So it creates a little bit more space for buttons and menus. 
You can also turn on whether or not the day of the week is shown. So you'll see that before the month if you want to. Now there's also an option here for Use 24 hour clock. So instead of a.m. and p.m. you'll simply see the time represented all the way up to 23 hours 59 minutes. But even if you have that turned off and just have the regular 12 hour clock you can turn off a.m. and p.m. with this setting here. If you want to see some activity going on in the clock you can turn on Flash the Time Separators and you could see the colon there will flash for each second. You could also just have the seconds displays in the clock there. 
So if you want you could really minimize the clock by having Show Date set to Never. Day of the week turned off. AM and PM turned off. And you really just have a few digits and a separator. But if you wanted it to be even smaller you can go to the Analog Clock. This will just show a circle with two lines in it telling you the time. So now it is about the same size as the rest of the buttons and it still works to bring up Notification Center. If you use Option Click it will turn on Do Not Disturb mode. You can see it's on there and now it is off. But the analog clock doesn't dim. That's as close as you can get to getting rid of it if you want. 
The clock also obeys the settings in General and then Language & Region. So, for instance, if I were to add a new language here and switch to it you can see how the language obeyed there for, say, the month but also even for things like how AM and PM are represented. Now it is also controlled by the Calendar Setting here. So if you choose a different calendar then you will see the month and day represented according to that calendar. 
Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.