How to put a clock on your Mac desktop

Add a clock widget to the desktop

The Clock app comes with four widgets: Clock, the time where you are; City, a clock for one place; World Clock, several cities side by side; and Alarm, your next alarm.

1. Control-click the wallpaper and choose Edit Widgets….
2. Search for Clock in the widget gallery, or click its category.
3. Drag the Clock, City or World Clock widget to where you want it on the desktop, or click it to place it automatically.
4. Click Done.

To choose the city in a City or World Clock widget, Control-click it and choose Edit “Clock”…, then click the city name and pick another. If yours isn’t listed, choose one in the same time zone. In a World Clock widget you can drag the cities into a new order. The same Control-click menu changes the widget’s size or removes it.

Desktop widgets sit behind your windows. If Click wallpaper to show desktop in Desktop & Dock settings is set to Always, clicking the wallpaper moves the windows aside so you can see the time. If the clock looks gray rather than in color, set Dim widgets on desktop in System Settings›, then Desktop & Dock to Never. More on sizes and styles is in our guide to customizing Mac widgets.

Keep track of other time zones

For the cities you check most, the World Clock widget is the quickest view. The Clock app itself has more: open it, click World Clock at the top of the window, and click the Add button in the top-right corner to add a city. Each city shows its local time along with sunrise and sunset. Drag the clocks to reorder them.

Change the menu bar clock

The clock in the menu bar is always there, and you can change how it looks. Open System Settings›, then Menu Bar and, under Menu Bar Controls, click Clock Options….

• Style: Digital or Analog. With Analog, the other time options aren’t available.
• Display the time with seconds, Show AM/PM and Flash the time separators change how the digital time looks.
• Show date: When Space Allows, Always or Never, plus an option to show the day of the week.
• Announce the time: your Mac says the time aloud on the hour, half hour or quarter hour.

To make the menu bar clock easier to read from across the desk, open System Settings›, then Accessibility›, then Display and set Menu bar size to Large. It takes effect after you log out and back in, and it makes all the menu bar text larger, not just the time.

A large clock on the screen saver and Lock Screen

Open System Settings›, then Lock Screen and choose an option next to Show large clock:

• On Screen Saver and Lock Screen
• On Lock Screen
• Never

A clock in your wallpaper’s colors, with MacScapes

MacScapes puts its own clock on the desktop, tinted with the palette of the live wallpaper behind it, so it looks like part of the scene rather than a panel on top. It sits above the wallpaper and below your Finder icons, and ignores clicks.

• Clock (free): digital, with the weekday and date, or analog, with a second hand. It uses your Mac’s 12- or 24-hour format.
• World Clock (MacScapes Pro): one city per widget, chosen from 34, from Honolulu to Auckland. It shows a sun or moon for day or night there, and how far ahead or behind it is, such as “Tomorrow, +13h”. Add one for each city you need.

1. In MacScapes, open Vibes, Control-click a vibe and choose Edit….
2. Under Widgets, click Add Widget… and choose Clock, then pick Digital or Analog.
3. Click Arrange on Desktop…, drag the clock into place and click Done, then click Save.

Each widget comes in small, medium or large, on a rounded card, a circle, a pill or with no background at all, in one of four typefaces. A clock pairs well with a focus timer or a countdown; the desktop widgets page shows all fourteen.