Custom Date & Time Formats

Show the date or time exactly the way you want, by typing a format on your watch. Each code below is replaced by its value.

Where to set a format

Open the data field on your watch, then choose Data Options. There are two kinds of format:

Date Format

Accepts date and time codes.

For the fields in Date and Time, like Custom Date and Custom Time Format.

Time Format → Customized

Accepts time codes only.

For fields that show a time, like World / Alt Time and Sunrise.

Date codes

The examples use Monday, March 9 2026, with Monday as the first day of the week.

Code	Shows	Example
%d	Day of the month, with leading zero	09
%j	Day of the month	9
%D	Day of the week, 3 letters	Mon
%E	Day of the week, 2 letters	Mo
%l	Day of the week, full name	Monday
%w	Day of the week as a number, 1 is your first day of the week	1
%m	Month, with leading zero	03
%n	Month	3
%M	Month, 3 letters	Mar
%F	Month, full name	March
%y	Year, 2 digits	26
%Y	Year, 4 digits	2026
%z	Day of the year, January 1 is 1	68
%W	Week number (ISO 8601)	11
%V	Week number (calendar week, the week of January 1 is week 1)	11
%C	Puts the whole text in capitals. Add it anywhere	%l%C = MONDAY

Day and month names follow your watch language. To always get English, set Advanced options → Date language to English. %w and %V follow Advanced options → First day of week.

Time codes

The examples use 17:05:09.

Code	Shows	Example
%H	Hour, 24h, with leading zero	17
%G	Hour, 24h	17
%h	Hour, 12h, with leading zero	05
%g	Hour, 12h	5
%i	Minutes	05
%s	Seconds	09
%a	am or pm	pm
%A	AM or PM	PM
%1a	a or p	p
%1A	A or P	P

Examples

Type this	To get
%D %M %d	Mon Mar 09
%D %M %d%C	MON MAR 09
%l %j %F	Monday 9 March
%d/%m/%y	09/03/26
%Y-%m-%d	2026-03-09
Week %W	Week 11
%H:%i	17:05
%g:%i%1a	5:05p
%D %H:%i	Mon 17:05

Good to know

Showing a time in a date field? Date fields refresh once a day by default, so set Refresh Time in Data Options to Every Minute at 0. With %s, use 1 sec.
Seconds and always-on mode: on AMOLED watches, %s stops counting in always-on mode, because the watchface only updates once a minute in that state. On MIP watches, set Refresh Time to Always on to keep drawing the seconds. See Refresh Time.
Show another day: Offset Minutes shifts the date and time by that many minutes. For example, 1440 shows tomorrow and -1440 shows yesterday.
Other text you type, like Week or a slash, stays as it is.
Codes are case-sensitive: %m is 03 and %M is Mar.