macOS Ventura 13.0 - Language Region - Date Format

This got me started, many thanks!

This can be performed from the command line, too, which is... easier:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleICUDateFormatStrings -dict-add "1" "MM/dd/y"

The dict indices, 1 through 4 correspond to the four "lengths" of dates, from short to whatever is longest. Easiest thing to do if you can find another macOS box that you'd used previously (still on macOS 12) is to run

defaults find AppleICU 

which will list out the names and related values in place on that machine (or like, get on and set things up the way you want, and then run that command to get the configuration.

My configuration is, btw:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleICUDateFormatStrings -dict-add "1" "ddMMMyy"
defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleICUDateFormatStrings -dict-add "2" "d MMM yy"
defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleICUDateFormatStrings -dict-add "3" "dd MMMM y"
defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleICUDateFormatStrings -dict-add "4" "EEEE, d MMMM y"

And I have some for time, as well.

Hope this helps!

Please send this also to Apple using the feedback form, or we may never get the elaborate System Preferences/Settings pane back, where we could easily customise the formats.

The feedback form is here: Feedback - macOS - Apple

I tried to check that file and found this file ".GlobalPreferenes_m.plist" and it's contents:

Evidently it's a carryover from an earlier system that did allow more customization of dates.

However, I've tried to add Sanderadio's edit to the .GlobalPreferences.plist file and it won't save. I've tried several save as, i.e. different file name but with the same results. All to the Desktop.

Apple Customer Support behaves like we are using our machines and phones for "entertainment". They told me to get in touch with Microsoft, because I was complaining about this experience in Excel. Microsoft in turns says, the time and date format is a system specific thing, I should consider downgrading to Monterey.

Maybe there are moles inside the Ventura development team, going to drive us towards using Windows, or something better than Apple. I am presently using South Africa as the region, as it provides me choice of number format. I am now a little tired of reporting issues with Apple's "unfinished" products being shipped to the market, without proper testing and dealing with customer support reps who do not understand the gravity of the matter. Just saying "I understand this is a matter of great concern to you, we are working to have your issue resolved at the earliest", while they give you a choice of "Jazz music" or "Pop music" on the phone call, is almost irritating.

léonie - I just used this in Terminal... and it seems to have worked. I use the medium time format to display the timezone in the Photos info window (which I'm guessing is one of the use cases you use too). I ran the command in Terminal then opened Photos and the info window shows the timezone.

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleICUTimeFormatStrings -dict-add "2" "HH:mm:ss z"

For reference - I used several different sites for the information.

This one has the longer list of options... https://gist.github.com/chris-79/654bfcd252280230fa82

I just used the "3" version but made it "2" for the terminal command.

Other sites with information...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/date-time-format-short-medium-long-and-full-fields.2367810/

Customizing Number Format in Ventura - Apple Community

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOSBeta/comments/vzlxy9/advanced_date_and_time_settings_missing_from/

http://www.macfreek.nl/memory/Decimal_Seperator_in_Mac_OS_X

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080403055310704

https://opensource.apple.com/source/CF/CF-550/CFDateFormatter.c.auto.html

https://unicode-org.github.io/icu/userguide/format_parse/datetime/#datetime-format-syntax

Thanks a lot, Zorkmimedarersa, that is wonderful! The timezone is showing in Photos in the Info as well as in the Toolbar.

Now can I again manage the date and time of my photos on my newest Mac, and have not to fall back on the Mac with Mojave.

R7un wrote:

Do you know how I could get to the "Advanced Settings" tab of Language and Region? I want to change the number separators, so in Excel, 1 million appears like 1.000.000,00

See here - Change the character used to separate thousands or decimals in Excel - Microsoft Support

macOS Ventura seems half baked. How could they not include an option to further customize date and number formats? They used to have it!

I also noticed that the AirPods Pro settings calls noise cancellation at least 3 different ways all in the same setting window. It uses "noise control", "cancellation", and "noise cancellation". macOS Venutra 13.0 looks like it's still a beta product.

Thank for this.

I contacted Apple today about not being able to customize the date on Venture. Here on a German macOS Ventura i only had the choice between dd.MM.yy or yyyy-MM-dd. But many programs i use need a 4digit year in the format dd.MM.yyyy and unfortunately the programs use the regional settings of macOS. That was really a blocker.

It seems the customer support is not even aware that there is no way to customize date and number format in Ventura as it was possible in earlier versions. They asked me to create a new user account, start in safe mode and finally they wanted me to reinstall Ventura, which i denied.

Anyway, i got a solutions.

But i had to logoff and login again to get the changes in the file ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist recognized.

Using the shell commands 'defaults write .....' changed it immediately without the need to logoff and login again.

So thanks to all for you helpful comments.

I swear I saw 13.1 somewhere in here. Must have been another topic that I had opened. 😕

Apple has dumbed down many of the preferences/settings to match iPhone more closely. We used to have unlimited configuration of dates and numbers.

For those not familiar with the Terminal we could embed the command in an AppleScript with the single line:

do shell script "defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleICUTimeFormatStrings -dict-add '2'  'HH:mm:ss z'"

Thanks for sharing this but it doesn't seem to have any effect for me. Nor does the other solution posted in this thread. I'm using Ventura 13.0.1 on a 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro M1 with UK regional settings.

Is there another step needed to assign the formats to a particular region?

Thanks, KMPeterson.

I just started experimenting with Ventura (on an external bootable disk, before doing an irreversible installation).

I noticed that the formats can no longer be set separately. This happened before ("Tiger" I think) and was a pain for two years.

I want to change the number format: I want ' (single quote) for thousands and . (dot) for decimal. But I also want English, metric, euros, YYYY-MM-DD, etc.

So I suppose there must be settings for that too, as you pointed out.

I just hope that whoever had the idea to again take some function away, will reverse that.