Is there a fast way to switch System time zone from the command line?

Question

I usually do it through the System Preference panel for Date & Time, but I'd like a quicker way to do this if there is one.

grg · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-05 10:57:15Z

37

Use the following Terminal command:

sudo systemsetup -settimezone timezone

For a list of valid timezone values, use sudo systemsetup -listtimezones.

To get the current timezone, use:

sudo systemsetup -gettimezone

answered Jan 20 '14 at 18:23

grg♦

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5

And just for the record, you can also get the current timezone by doing sudo systemsetup -gettimezone. – XåpplI'-I0llwlg'I - Sep 8 '14 at 13:25
3

is there a way to get the timezone without root? – cavalcade Feb 28 '15 at 7:16
How can I update NTP source from CLI? – Quanlong Dec 3 '15 at 3:44
Sadly, this isn't working for me. It seems to change it (says Set TimeZone: America/New_York and returns exit code 0) but then sudo systemsetup -gettimezone returns the previous value (Time Zone: America/Los_Angeles). – AlexChaffee Sep 2 '16 at 17:38
To get timezone without sudo, use date +"%Z %z". This displays something like EDT -0400, the upper case z outputs the TZ abbreviation, lowercase the UTC offset. – Jon Church Apr 3 '20 at 17:08

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Dorian · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-16 23:43:29Z

0

Additionally:

Printing a random timezone:

ruby -e "puts `sudo systemsetup -listtimezones`.lines.sample.strip"

Setting a random timezone:

sudo systemsetup -settimezone (ruby -e "puts `sudo systemsetup -listtimezones`.lines.sample.strip")

Finding a timezone (e.g. containing "Los" in this case):

sudo printf ''; sudo systemsetup -listtimezones | grep Los

answered Feb 16 '17 at 23:43

Dorian

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2 Answers 2