Fix in latest stable update from April (then one bot on Path Tuesday, but later).
How to enable seconds in system clock
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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68 additional answers
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Anonymous
2025-05-26T06:53:42+00:00 EDIT: WAS fixed for about 2 months with April update, but now it's gone again!!!
Someone from Microsoft owes me an explanation!!
I know I'm very late, but if you're not seeing the option at all (idk what MS is smoking), try this in the power shell.
Set-ItemProperty -Path HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced -Name ShowSecondsInSystemClock -Value 1 -Force
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Anonymous
2024-10-18T07:25:47+00:00 Try searching for word "seconds" in the settings
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Anonymous
2023-11-13T12:39:49+00:00 Can't find Taskbar behaviors, and check the “Show seconds in system tray clock” option.
Short answer:
Chances are your version of Windows does not apply.
For me, I did the regedit, the forced short time format mentioned below, and after a system restart, my clock now shows seconds and I am running Windows 10 Pro Version 21H2, OS build 19044.3393
Speculative long answer (with alternative suggestion):
The post doesn't specify what version of Windows this applies to. I'd guess it's WIndows 11 because I don't have it either, or it's a later version of Windows 10 that I had refused to update to after the last update started giving me BSODs like no other. There were replies about the selected answer as being exclusive to an Insider's Preview version of Windows (regarding the show seconds tutorial linked in OP's question) while numerous responses claim similar circumstances.
Alternatively, you can try combining the number of other replies that have suggest various methods:
- Navigate to Control Panel\Clock and Region(or just "Region")\Region\Change date, time, or number formats* >> In the Region pop-up click on "Additional Settings..." navigate to the "Time" tab and manually set the format for "Short Time" to "h:mm:ss tt" or whichever you prefer, ignoring the fact that at the bottom it says "s = seconds (long time only)" and click apply/OK. Then apply the registry edit suggested.
- Using either
regeditor the cmd line, add the DWORD "ShowSecondsInSystemClock" and set to 1 under the addressHKEY\_LOCAL\_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\ - Reboot or Log Off or reset Explorer
Otherwise there are Windows 10 Apps that offer extra clock widgets or whatnot but they don't necessarily address the issue of a clock with seconds being in the taskbar. However, there is Windhawk which appears to offer a Taskbar Clock Customization mod that supports Windows 10 64-bit and Windows 11 allows for customization configured by the time and format settings and in the screenshot, shows seconds being displayed. Though, I haven't used it myself to speak on to it's affect on performance.
* You must reach these settings using Control Panel, you will not be able to reach this same setting by right-clicking on the clock, selecting "Adjust Date/Time" then under Related settings, there's Date, time & regional Formatting because that will take you to the screen below:
And if you click on "Change data formats" it will bring you to similar settings area but this setup does NOT allow you to manually type in the specified settings.
When navigating from the Control Panel, you should be using the more WIndows 7 looking interface like below:
as that gives you this window:
Whereby you click on "Additional settings..." to give you:
and as noted, I simply added the "ss" in the Short time format, regardless of it telling me, long time only.
No no I said, me no love you long time only.
GL
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Anonymous
2023-06-14T15:56:31+00:00 WOW!!! It was fixed for a good month or two, but after most recent update it's gone again!!
Looked all over in settings but can't re-enable. ****!!?!?!?!!