How to Change Date and Time Format in WordPress?

Do you want to change date and time format in WordPress website? By default, your posts will automatically display the inbuilt date and time set on your website. However, as a site owner, you may want to configure it and set it on your own format. It does not require any coding skills to do that. WordPress comes with an inbuilt option to configure the date and time format of your website. 

Let’s check this out in detail:

The first thing you need to do is login to your WordPress dashboard. 

Then, go to Settings > General.

After that, you need to scroll down to the Date Format. There, select the available date format and time format from their respective section. 

Change Date and TIme Format in WordPress

Then, choose the time zone as per the location you want to set.

If all the selection is fine, click on Save Changes below to save changes.

What are the Format Characters for Date and Time in WordPress?

Date and Time Format uses alphabetic character for representation. These are called formatting strings. 

There are several predefined date constant that uses formatting parameter string. They are:

Days
dDay of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros01 to 31
DA textual representation of a day, three lettersMon through Sun
jDay of the month without leading zeros1 to 31
l (lowercase ‘L’)A full textual representation of the day of the weekSunday through Saturday
NISO-8601 numeric representation of the day of the week (added in PHP 5.1.0)1 (for Monday) through 7 (for Sunday)
SEnglish ordinal suffix for the day of the month, 2 charactersstndrd or th. Works well with j
wNumeric representation of the day of the week0 (for Sunday) through 6 (for Saturday)
zThe day of the year (starting from 0)0 through 365
Week
WISO-8601 week number of year, weeks starting on MondayExample: 42 (the 42nd week in the year)
Month
FA full textual representation of a month, such as January or MarchJanuary through December
mNumeric representation of a month, with leading zeros01 through 12
MA short textual representation of a month, three lettersJan through Dec
nNumeric representation of a month, without leading zeros1 through 12
tNumber of days in the given month28 through 31
Year
LWhether it’s a leap year1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise.
oISO-8601 week-numbering year. This has the same value as Y, except that if the ISO week number (W) belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used instead. (added in PHP 5.1.0)Examples: 1999 or 2003
YA full numeric representation of a year, 4 digitsExamples: 1999 or 2003
yA two digit representation of a yearExamples: 99 or 03
Time
aLowercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiemam or pm
AUppercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiemAM or PM
BSwatch Internet time000 through 999
g12-hour format of an hour without leading zeros1 through 12
G24-hour format of an hour without leading zeros0 through 23
h12-hour format of an hour with leading zeros01 through 12
H24-hour format of an hour with leading zeros00 through 23
iMinutes with leading zeros00 to 59
sSeconds with leading zeros00 through 59
uMicroseconds (added in PHP 5.2.2). Note that date() will always generate 000000 since it takes an integer parameter, whereas DateTime::format() does support microseconds if DateTime was created with microseconds.Example: 654321
vMilliseconds (added in PHP 7.0.0). Same note applies as for u.Example: 654
Timezone
eTimezone identifier (added in PHP 5.1.0)Examples: UTCGMTAtlantic/Azores
I (capital i)Whether or not the date is in daylight saving time1 if Daylight Saving Time, 0 otherwise.
ODifference to Greenwich time (GMT) without colon between hours and minutesExample: +0200
PDifference to Greenwich time (GMT) with colon between hours and minutes (added in PHP 5.1.3)Example: +02:00
TTimezone abbreviationExamples: ESTMDT …
ZTimezone offset in seconds. The offset for timezones west of UTC is always negative, and for those east of UTC is always positive.-43200 through 50400
Full Date/Time
cISO 8601 date (added in PHP 5)2004-02-12T15:19:21+00:00
r» RFC 2822 formatted dateExample: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200
USeconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)See also time()

Source

From above-mentioned strings, here are some of the commonly used date and time formatting string are:

M d, Y – will output – Nov 06, 2014
d M, Y – will output – 06 Nov, 2014
F jS, Y – will output – November 6th, 2014
l, F jS, Y – will output – Thursday, November 6th, 2014
H:i:s – will output – 21:26:12

You can try the different formats on the custom box to change the format of both date and time on your WordPress website.

After you enter the format, WordPress will preview the date or time you have entered.

Once you have saved your settings, it will use this format throughout your website unless your theme has any type of pre-defined date and time format.