Skip to main content

How to manually adjust the time on your Apple Watch

Love your Apple Watch but want to manually adjust the time like on an analog watch? Read on for how to set your Apple Watch ahead by a custom amount of time.

If you’d like your Apple Watch to be an accurate timepiece, you don’t have to do anything. Its default behavior is to automatically set the time, and it will adjust on its own for daylight savings time and time zone changes.

However, if you’d like to manually adjust the time on your Apple Watch, you can set it ahead by anything from 1 minute up to 59.

How to adjust the time of your Apple Watch

If you decide to set your Apple Watch ahead, it’s only the watch face that will be affected. All notifications and alerts for the Calendar and Reminders apps, etc. will happen at the actual time.

  1. Open Settings on your Apple Watch
  2. Swipe or scroll down to Clock
  3. Tap on +0 min
  4. Use the digital crown to set your watch ahead
  5. Tap Set

Here’s how these steps look:

Now you can set your Apple Watch ahead by up to 59 minutes.

Read more 9to5Mac tutorials: 

iPhone & iPad:

AirPods Pro:

Mac:

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Hyper Drive GEN2
You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Manage push notifications

notification icon
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
notification icon
You are subscribed to notifications
notification icon
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
notification icon
You are subscribed to notifications