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How to display the date in Mac OS X Menu Bar

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 · 11:39 am · 32 Comments

“When getting settled into my new MacBook, it quickly became apparent that I did not want to rely on the calendar widget to find the numeric date. I simply wanted to view the date alongside the time in the menu-bar. Unfortunately, this is not an option in the Mac OS X operating system. However, by making some minor modifications, you too can easily display the date in the Mac OS X menu-bar without additional applications,” Macinstruct reports.

Macinstruct reports, “I have been using it for almost a year on all of my Macs and it has worked perfectly!”

Full article with simple instructions (Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger only) here.

MacDailyNews Note: We get this question frequently. Thanks to Macinstruct for their clear instructions. We have also been using this method to display the Day, Date, and Time in our Menu Bars for over a year with no problems.

Related article:
How to get the full date and time in the Mac OS X Menu Bar – December 02, 2005

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Comment Feed

32 Comments

1 2 Next »

gman

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 12:45 pm · Reply

slow, slow NEWS day..today.
FistOfGod

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 12:47 pm · Reply

I always know what the date is already.
CDN Guy

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 12:48 pm · Reply

Can’t you just look down at the iCal icon to see the date? If you need to know what month you are in then you have bigger problems to deal with.
toad

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 12:55 pm · Reply

wow…number one on digg…prepare for traffic jam.
neven

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 12:59 pm · Reply

CDN guy:

I’m a huge fan of iLife and iWork, but iCal is the one app I haven’t gotten into for a very simple reason: unlike the way I use other apps, I read and write to my calendar all the time, from different places and different devices. Until there is Google Calendar two-way syncing, I’m launching iCal every now and then to get my calendar from Google so it can go on my iPod and phone. But, it’s not worth it for me to be running iCal all the time.
gern

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 12:59 pm · Reply

doesn’t work..
Whatever

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:02 pm · Reply

Just get the free MenuClockCalendar and besides the present date you have an easy way to see entire month calendars as well:

http://www.objectpark.net/mcc-download.html
Should be easier

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:05 pm · Reply

This should be a lot easier. We would make all kinds of fun at Winblows users if we saw them do this…
Jake

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:06 pm · Reply

That was GREAT! It works just fine.
Jake

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:11 pm · Reply

It SHOULD be easier. And, no, the iCal icon is not an adequate substitute. Sometimes my iCal is not running. Besides, my Dock is set to disappear unless I move my cursor to the bottom of the screen (for added screen space on my laptop), so this obviates the need to bother with that. Now I have the best of both.
yasir

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:14 pm · Reply

everyones being negative but i love this!
AlanAudio

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:18 pm · Reply

That trick doesn’t work for me.

However, I’ve always set the Clock running in the Dock as a start-up item. If you have it formatted as a digital clock, the date is shown very clearly. If your dock icons are small, you can see it magnified by using the genie effect if you have it enabled.
maroon

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:22 pm · Reply

for some reason it only worked for me if I selected the Long date version, not the medium one.. Also, since weekday is already showing ?spontaneously in the time display in the menu bar, I had to take that out of my template. Yes, something crashed for me too while I was trying different configurations..
r_y_a_n

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:25 pm · Reply

Works great!!!!
Buster

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:31 pm · Reply

Worked fo rme. Great and handy tip…thanks.
Spencer Corey Cotton

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:57 pm · Reply

I prefer Calendar Clock for numerous reasons – I use the free test version:

http://www.objectpark.net/

I love it, you should try it!
MPC Guy

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:57 pm · Reply

>whatever wrote: Just get the free MenuClockCalendar

I’ve been using this workaround for a long time now, but always wanted something that did exactly what MenuClockCalendar did. Never got around to looking for it though.

Thanks a lot for the link. Downloaded and installed it already. Good stuff!

Have a nice day!

—

A little off topic, but just as helpful.

Himmel Bar
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13059

It lets you launch apps without having to open Finder or clicking aliases. Installs in the right-side Menu bar area, like MenuClockCalendar.
Micro Me

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 1:59 pm · Reply

Another good freebie is wClock (although some users have complained of glitches in Tiger).

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13297
whatever

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 2:22 pm · Reply

I did this once and thought it was great till I started looking at dates in the finder windows – It screws them all up, you get 2 Thursdays listed and the time format is screwy. I finally switched mine back and just click there when I need to know the date..
amnesia

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 2:25 pm · Reply

But if you click on the time in the menu it tells you the date anyway. Surely you only need to do this once a day unless you have very bad short term memory? I’d rather use the menu space for menumeters personally, much more useful!

MDN magic word: times!
Greg L

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 2:31 pm · Reply

At least with 10.3.9, the rocking nice way to display time and date is with wClock 3.0 (Wolf Clock) from Wolfware-dot-com. You get to configure it exactly the way you want. Mine displays the following in a dark blue font:

Tue, February 20 2007 10:25:50 AM

…because that’s the way I’ve got mine configured. On a laptop with less screen realestate, I’d use a more truncated format. And here’s another nice thing about it: When I click on the date or time in the menu bar, up pops a handly little calendar where you can jump forward (or backwards) by months or years.

No, I’m not associated with Wolfware in any way. I’m telling others of this because its a nice little shareware program. Reviews on MacUpdate give it five stars.
Cubert

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 2:47 pm · Reply

Thanks MDN! I did this long ago but have since forgotten how and have done a clean install, too (strongly believe in doing one of those with each major OS upgrade).
Micro Me

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 2:48 pm · Reply

The Wolfware site appears to have been dead for some time, but you can download wClock 3.0 from the MacUpdate link I posted above.

I’ve used wClock for several years. No glitches for me; it’s great.
dogfriend

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 2:48 pm · Reply

I just click and hold on the time in the menu bar and it displays the full date. WTF? Am I missing something here?
Bizarro Jeff

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 - 3:05 pm · Reply

I’m another wClock fan. No glitches on Tiger. Great little piece of software.