How to change formats for dates, times, numbers and currencies on Mac

By default, your Mac uses settings based on your location and language preferences, but there may be times when you need to adjust these settings to meet your specific needs.

Whether you’re working on a project with international colleagues, need to customize how numbers and currencies are displayed, or simply prefer a different date or time format, this article will guide you through the steps to change formats for dates, times, numbers, units of measurement, and currencies on Mac.

Language and region settings on MacBook

Change date, time, numbers, and other formats

Once you change the formats of these items, those changes will affect the displays in places like Finder windows and apps like Mail.

The date, time, number, and other formats depend on the selected set country or region of your Mac as well as the language. You can switch your Mac’s region and language, which will appropriately change the right date, time, numbers, and other formats used in that country.

Besides that, you can also change a few of these settings independently by following these steps:

On macOS Ventura and later

  1. Click the Apple icon  and choose System Settings.
  2. Go to General > Language & Region.
  3. From here, you can pick the desired formats or units for Calendar, Temperature, Measurement system, First day of week, Date format, and Number format.
Language, Region, and other settings on Mac

Note: You cannot directly pick the time format on macOS Ventura and later. Changing region and language may help.

On macOS Monterey and earlier

  1. Open System Preferences.
  2. Choose Language & Region and then click the Advanced button.
Language and Region Advanced on Mac

Change the date format:

Click on the Dates tab and then take a look at the formats you’ve been using for short, medium, long, and full dates. You can change any or all of these, and you have tons of flexibility.

For example, I had a boss who always wanted the date formatted as: full year, month, date, using all numbers. So, it had to be 2019/01/31. You could change the short date for this:

  1. Drag the year to the front of the sequence and click the drop-down to select the full year.
  2. Drag the month to the center and click the drop-down box for a leading zero.
  3. Leave the date as-is and click the drop-down to choose its leading zero as well.
  4. Click OK.
Change Date Format in Language Region Mac

Just make sure when you are moving the elements that you pay attention to the punctuation so that everything is displayed correctly between the slashes and commas.

For whichever element you decide to change, check out the drop-down box for the various options.

Change the time format:

Click on the Times tab, and you’ll see formats, like with the dates, for short, medium, long, and full times. You can change these just as easily.

By clicking the drop-down boxes, you have options to use 12- or 24-hour time formats. You can also remove leading zeros if you like. And, of course, you can change the way the time zone displays.

Say that you want to use a 24-hour time format with leading zeros for the short time and won’t need the AM/PM element.

  1. Click the hour drop-down box and select 01-24.
  2. Leave the minutes element as-is with its leading zero.
  3. Select and click Delete to remove the AM element.
  4. Click OK.
Change Time Format in Language Region Mac

Note: If you simply want to change the time format in your menu bar, go to System Preferences > Date & Time.

Change the number, currency, or measurement format:

Click on the General tab, and you’ll see the default formats for numbers, currency, and measurements.

  • Number separators: Maybe you don’t want a comma for your number Groupings, or maybe you prefer a comma over a Decimal. Click those drop-down boxes to make your changes.
  • Currency: You can select the default currency from the enormous list in the drop-down box. And you can set the Grouping and Decimal choices for the currency as well.
  • Measurement units: You can choose from Metric, US, or UK.

Click OK after you make any changes to save them.

Change Number Currency Format in Language Region Mac

If you make several changes that you want to revert, you can head back to this area and click the Restore Defaults button on the corresponding tab.

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