How to show shorter time and date in Taskbar on Windows 11

• To show a shorter time and date in the Taskbar, open Settings > Time & language > Date & time, click “Show time and date in the System tray,” and check “Show abbreviated time and date.”
• Alternatively, open Control Panel > Clock and Region > Format > Advanced settings > Time and set the “H:mm” option for the “Short time” setting, and then from the “Date” tab, set the “Short date” to “M/d.”

UPDATED 5/14/2025: On Windows 11, you can show a shorter format for the time and date available through the Taskbar System Tray, and in this guide, I will show you how.

The ability to customize the regional format (more specifically, the time and date) in the Taskbar has been available for a long time, but it was a customization you needed to perform with multiple steps from the “Region” settings. However, starting with the release of build 22635.3930, Windows 11 includes an option that makes it easier to display a shorter version of the date and time in the System Tray.

If you want to change the format of the clock area in the Taskbar, you can use the “Date & time” or “Region” settings from the Control Panel on Windows 11.

In this guide, I will explain how to enable the abbreviated format for time and date from the Settings app and Control Panel.

• Show shorter time and date format in Taskbar from Settings
• Show shorter time and date format in Taskbar from Control Panel

Show shorter time and date format in Taskbar from Settings

To display shorter time and date format in the Taskbar on Windows 11 build 22635.3930 and higher releases, use these steps:

1. Open Settings on Windows 11.

2. Click on Time & language.

3. Click the Date & time page.

4. Click the “Show time and date in the System tray” setting.

   

5. Check the “Show abbreviated time and date” option.

Once you complete the steps, the System Tray will display hours and minutes without the AM or PM annotation, and the date will appear as month and day (in the United States) without the year part.

This option was supposed to be available for all users already, but it appeared that Microsoft decided to delay it even further. If the option isn’t available and you want to shorten the format, you can use the Control Panel. However, you can still enable the “Show abbreviated time and date” option using the ViveTool and running the vivetool /enable /id:48525682 if you have a device running the latest preview of Windows 11 in the Beta Channel.

Show shorter time and date format in Taskbar from Control Panel

To configure the time and date settings to make them shorter through the legacy Control Panel, use these steps:

1. Open Start.

2. Search for Control Panel and click the top result to open the app.

3. Click on Clock and Region.

4. Click the Region setting.

   

5. Click the Formats tab.

6. Click the Advanced settings button.

   

7. Click the Time tab.

8. Choose the “H:mm” option in the “Short time” setting.

   

9. Click the Date tab.

10. Confirm the “M/d” format for the “Short date” setting.

    

11. Click the Apply button.

12. Click the OK button.

After you complete the steps, the Taskbar clock area will display a shorter version of the time and date.

Update May 14, 2025: This guide has been updated to ensure accuracy and reflect changes to the process.