Excel on MAC, Date Formats to US and not UK

Question

Excel on MAC, Date Formats to US and not UK

Jonah 0

Hello,

My dates are messed up and format to US.

So I type "7-9" and should get 7 SEP, but I get 9 JUL

I have checked regional settings and they are correct and set to UK

I have used Terminal as someone recommended and it came back with ENG_GB

I use this workbook on both PC and Mac, when using PC the date works as expected

Why is this so difficult, any advice would be appreciated

0 comments

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

Jeronimo Fuerte 45,750 Independent Advisor

macOS allows an individual application to use a different language from the system-wide language. Therefore, even though Terminal reports ENG_GB and your Region is set to UK, Excel itself can still have a separate language setting. First, completely quit Excel using Command + Q. Then on the Mac go to:

Apple menu > System Settings > General > Language & Region

Under Applications:

Check whether Microsoft Excel is already listed.

If it is listed, make sure its language is English (UK) rather than English (US).

If Excel is not listed, click +, select Microsoft Excel, and set its language to English (UK).

Reopen Excel.

Then test in a new blank workbook before opening the existing file. You can also control how the resulting date is displayed by selecting the cells and pressing:

Command + 1 > Number > Date

and choosing English (United Kingdom), or by using a custom format.

If Excel has already interpreted 7-9 as July 9, simply changing the cell format to d mmm will only change how that July 9 value is displayed; it will not convert it into September 7, so dates that were already entered incorrectly may need to be corrected or re-entered after fixing the setting.

Jonah 0 Reputation points

2026-09-10T20:37:50.6366667+00:00

Thanks I tried all of this.

The settings in the cell show as UK.

This is new workbook after settings were changed.

Although they were already set as English UK, no US option showing, just one that was English-English.

I even tried setting to that and then back again, alas to no avail.

Thanks for the reply
Jeronimo Fuerte 45,750 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-09-11T00:27:20.71+00:00
Thanks for confirming that the previous steps did not resolve the issue. Since this also happens in a new blank workbook, could you please provide a few more details so I can determine whether this is related to Excel itself or to how it is reading the macOS locale

What exact macOS version are you currently using? You can check under Apple menu > About This Mac.

In Excel > About Microsoft Excel, what exact version and build are shown now? Please let me know whether you are still on 16.112 (26081010) or whether Excel has been updated.

Could you please share a screenshot of System Settings > General > Language & Region, showing:

Preferred Languages

Region

Calendar

Date format

Please remove or hide any personal information if necessary.

For the cell where you enter 7-9 and Excel converts it to 9 July, please select that cell and let me know exactly what appears in the Formula Bar.