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Sumleilmus

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 6, 2011
101
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When my M1 Mac Mini boots in Sonoma, the clock shows a time in 12 hour time format. Is it possible to get it to show a 24 hour clock format before I log in?
 
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Have you gone into "System Settings" > "General" and chosen "Date & Time"?

TinyGrab Screen Shot 12-17-23, 8.34.35 PM.png


Lou
 
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Have you gone into "System Settings" > "General" and chosen "Date & Time"?
Yes. But thanks. No solution to be found there. The time zone is correct, but not the format.

Er, what hardware and macOS are you using? I do not see what you show in your attached image. In particular, I do not see the toggle for "Show 24-hour time on the Lock Screen."

Your reply puzzles me greatly.
 
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I see the same as@flowrider in General - Date & Time on MBA M1 Sonoma 14.2, although Apple doesn't mention "Show 24-hour time on Lock Screen" in the current documentation.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-date-time-settings-mchlp1124/mac
That setting changes values in /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist, AppleICUForce12HourTime - YES for 12 hours.

To set 24-hour, try from Terminal:

Code:
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist AppleICUForce12HourTime

and reboot.
You may need to give Terminal temporary Full Disk Access for the command to work.
 
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"Show 24-hour time on Lock Screen" seems to have been introduced in Sonoma 14.2
Same virtual machine with Sonoma 14.1.2 and after the update to Sonoma 14.2
Sonoma-14.1.2.jpg
Sonoma-14.2.jpg
 
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Yes. But thanks. No solution to be found there. The time zone is correct, but not the format.

Er, what hardware and macOS are you using? I do not see what you show in your attached image. In particular, I do not see the toggle for "Show 24-hour time on the Lock Screen."

Your reply puzzles me greatly.
Dude. Apple takes so long to fix stuff like that. I reported this ages ago. It’s been present since first Sonoma beta. I stopped reporting stuff because Apple doesn’t fix them
 
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I just found this post and have the same problem as the original poster. I have a 2021 MBP M1 and had recently upgraded from Ventura to Sonoma 14.4.
But I have the 24-hour time set as well as show 24-hour time on the Lock Screen. The date and time is correct for my time zone CET.
However, only when I reboot the Mac and get the very first Lock Screen the time shows in 12-hour format. But when my Mac wakes from sleep and shows the Lock Screen it shows the 24-hour time correctly.

I found some other post suggesting to use sudo rm /var/db/timed/com.apple.timed.plist but this did not fix my problem.

Does anybody have this exact problem and found a solution?
 
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Dito.. have the same issue... Apple Support didn’t know what to do either. I told them to file a bug.
 
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Same issue here. The option for "Show 24-hour time on Lock Screen" has even disappeared in the latest Tahoe beta. The FileVault Lock Screen does not respect this setting. Instead I've noticed it is dependent on the preferred language setting. Submitted a bug report which is all we can do for now.
 
Submitted a bug report for this and dissapointingly Apple replied with "Investigation complete - Works as currently designed". Not sure the logic behind that but Apple appears to see this as a non issue despite the inconsistency between FileVault unlock screen and user unlock screen.
 
I just sent a bug report to Apple https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos/ – Maybe more folks could do the same to give the issue a bit more importance. I'm on macOS 15.6.1. I have a MacBook Air (M4), but Apple forgot to add this in the list of choices (so I chose M2). Here's what I wrote for the Feedback Area of User Interface

Boot screen clock won't comply with the system setting set to 24h format

The *boot* screen (File Vault) displays time in 12-hour format, despite the time display being configured in Settings to be 24-hour format. 24-hour format is OK across the system and on the Lock Screen after waking from sleep, but not on the boot screen.

I have a MacBook Air (M4), so you should update the list "Which computer are you using?"
 
Running the latest Tahoe beta this issue appears to be fixed. I did have to reset some of my defaults set before, running this command in terminal fixes my issue:

sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist AppleICUForce12HourTime
 
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