30

In the OSX dashboard, the world clock doesn't have a UTC option. Choosing London only works half of the year (the other half London is on Daylight Savings Time and is UTC+1).

I could choose Atlantic/Reykjavik, which is always on UTC, but it seems like a hack, and I'd rather have my clock display "UTC" instead of "Reykjavik".

3 Answers 3

26

There is already a UTC clock available.

Assuming you're on Yosemite:

  1. Go to your notification center
  2. Click Edit at the bottom
  3. Add the World Clock and click Done.
  4. Hover over the World Clock you just added, and click on the (i) icon.
  5. Enter UTC when it asks for City.
  6. That's it. You're done.
15

You can edit the source of the world clock widget to add UTC:

cd /Library/Widgets
sudo vi WorldClock.js

Since Mac OS El Capitan, the file is now found here:

cd /Library/Widgets/World Clock.wdgt/
sudo vi WorldClock.js

Then, in the Europe section, add the line:

{city:'UTC', offset:0, timezone:'UTC', id:"2647937"},

The "city" will become the display name of the clock widget; it can be whatever you like.

You may need to remove and recreate any existing clocks in your dashboard for UTC to show up in the list. Since Mac OS Mojave, you will need to kill the DashboardClient process to see the new option (it will restart on its own):

killall DashboardClient
7
  • This seems like a hack too: UTC shouldn't be a "city".
    – Emil Laine
    Commented May 20, 2015 at 8:38
  • 7
    Just to update, on Mac OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan, the file WorldClock.js is in /Library/Widgets/World Clock.wdgt/.
    – jlp
    Commented Oct 13, 2016 at 22:15
  • 2
    Just to update, on Sierra UTC already exists. No need to hack.
    – Sassan
    Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 22:22
  • 1
    @joe-p How did you determine the id value or is it made up?
    – Brettski
    Commented Jan 13, 2019 at 20:53
  • 2
    On Mac OS Mojave, I had kill the DashboardClient process ( $ killall DashboardClient). It restarted on its own. After that, I could see UTC in the clock.
    – user674669
    Commented Oct 31, 2019 at 17:55
9

I couldn't figure out these instructions for my High Sierra Machine machine so I installed this Status Clock from Pulsely Consulting: enter image description here

1
  • 1
    Thanks. This is much better than the built-in clock widgets, because it's always visible and it shows the time in 24h format. Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 15:57

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .