TIP: Enable Shortened Date and Time on Taskbar in All Windows Versions

The upcoming versions of Windows 11 are rumored to come with a new feature called “Shortened time and date” which will show the clock on the Taskbar notification area in a short or minimal form. The date field will display the current day and month only and will remove the year information from the clock on the Taskbar.

In this article, we’ll share a small and useful tip to get the same shortened date/time feature right now in any Windows version such as Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 or , Windows 11.

Recently PhantomOcean3 and Albacore on Twitter shared interesting information about the upcoming shortened date/time feature in Windows 11. According to them, Microsoft is going to add a new feature to upcoming Windows 11 versions to show a shorter version of date and time on Taskbar notification area or system tray.

Users will be able to show minimal information about the date and time on the Taskbar. The option will be available on Taskbar Settings page with the label “Show shortened time and date” and will be disabled by default.

Following screenshot shows a comparison of the default and the new shortened date and time information showing on the Taskbar notification area:

The new feature has been added to the latest Beta build of Windows 11 operating system and it’s not confirmed whether the feature will be released to public or not. It’ll depend upon the testing and feedback received from the testers. If everything goes smooth, we might get the feature in future versions of Windows 11 operating system. If something goes wrong and the feature causes bugs or issues, Microsoft might cancel the feature.

Did you know we can enable and enjoy the same shortened date and time feature manually in all Windows versions? Actually almost all Windows versions allow users to customize and change date and time appearance on Taskbar clock but many users are not aware of it.

All Windows versions come with a Control Panel applet called Region or Regional Settings which can be used to customize date and time settings and many other preferences.

In past, we have posted many tutorials to customize date and time formats in Windows operating system with the help of this hidden Region settings window.

You can take a look at them using following links:

• How to Show Day and Month Names in System Tray Date in Windows 7 and Later
• How to Show AM / PM Symbols in System Tray Clock in Windows 7 and Later
• How to Customize AM and PM Symbols in System Tray Clock in Windows?

If you are using Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 or Windows 11 operating systems in your computer, you can activate and enable the upcoming shortened date/time feature right now in your device.

Following steps will help you in turning on the shortened date/time feature in Windows operating system:

STEP 1: First of all, we’ll need to open the hidden secret Region settings window. By default, it’s present on the classic Control Panel page but we can launch it directly using intl.cpl command. Press WIN+R keys together to open RUN dialog box. Now type intl.cpl and press Enter. It’ll open Region customization window.

STEP 2: Now click on Additional Settings button present on the Region window. It’ll open Customize Format window where you can customize various parameters such as number, currency, date and time formats.

Since we want to customize date and time format, we’ll select the Date tab.

STEP 3: Go to Date tab and you’ll following two settings to customize:

• Short date
• Long date

The Short date value is used by Windows to determine the date format on Taskbar clock. We’ll need to modify the value of Short date field to enable shortened date and time feature. By default it’s set to M/d/yyyy which means the date is shown in numbers only containing current month, day and year.

To enable the shortened date and time feature, change the Short date value to following:

M/d

Apply the changes and the Taskbar will immediately start showing date in short version containing the current month and day information only.

NOTE: The M argument represents month number, d represents day number and yyyy represents year.

BONUS TIP: You can also customize the date and time information to show day name, month name or any desired text on the Taskbar as shown in following image:

Following exclusive article will help you in customizing the date and time information on Taskbar clock like a pro in any Windows version:

[Tip] Customize Date and Time in Windows 11 Taskbar Clock, Add Your Name, Day, Month Names

Also Check:

How to Restore or Enable Classic Taskbar in Windows 11 (All Versions)

How to Restore or Enable Classic File Explorer in Windows 11 (All Versions)