How to enable seconds in system clock

Anonymous
2023-02-02T20:46:44+00:00

Title says it all.

Found this article, which had a couple suggestions: https://winaero.com/how-to-enable-seconds-for-the-taskbar-clock-in-windows-11/

" Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors, and check the “Show seconds in system tray clock” option."

Is not there for me

Tried registry fixes, but that made it worse and actually removed the system clock all together, while also breaking the start menu completely. Had to undo that change and now back to square one.

Why on Earth would Microsoft remove the seconds from the clock? I use it quite often for a game I play.. Very frustrating when they remove common sense features like this. Really looks like MSoft put some extremely incompetent people in charge of Win 11. Reminds me of when they hired the guy from Nike to design Win 8 Metro UI. I think we all remember how that went!!

EDIT: WAS fixed for about 2 months with April update, but now it's gone again!!!

Someone from Microsoft owes me an explanation!!

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Settings

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Anonymous
2023-04-29T09:12:23+00:00

Fix in latest stable update from April (then one bot on Path Tuesday, but later).

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-04-28T22:08:04+00:00

    OK, my version is 23H2, 22631.5262

    Seconds display can be set by searching for "seconds" in the Find a setting box in Settings or by right-clicking the time display in the task bar, clicking "adjust time and date", clicking the text "Show seconds in system tray clock..." and checking the box.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-04-28T21:45:38+00:00

    The seconds display works in the version I have, as well. The question I was asking was about the version difference between the one I have (whose build I should be able to get later this evening), in which the setting is located in one place, and the ones that others seem to have, in which the setting is located in another place.

    It may or may not be worth noting that the version I have is Windows 11 Education, which is a variant on Windows 11 Enterprise (exactly the same functionality, just a different set of defaults). In addition to build numbers (such as you gave) and release name (such as 24H2, 23H2, etc.), it might be worthwhile for each person who reports seeing different results to specify which edition that person is running.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-04-28T21:33:36+00:00

    I have OS Build 22631.5262, and the seconds display has worked for quite a while on earlier versions.

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-04-28T19:10:42+00:00

    As of 2025-04-28 if you search for 'seconds' in settings it can be found under Time & Language > Date & Time as an option under the Show time and date in the System tray.

    Hmm. What Windows version is that under, and with how recent an update? Exact build numbers would be ideal.

    I'm not at the computer in question right now, so I can't quickly get the build number etc. myself for comparison.

    Searching for 'seconds' in the Settings interface is exactly how I found the setting in the location I described.

    (FWIW, I did test to confirm my hypothesis about that toggle just controlling "Long time" vs. "Short time", and it looks like I was wrong; even with both "Long time" and "Short time" set to the HH:mm:ss string, unchecking that toggle results in Windows not showing seconds.)

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