To change the time on your iPad, open the Settings app, tap General, and select Date & Time. Turn off Set Automatically, then tap Time Zone to change your location or tap the date/time fields to set a custom time manually. You can also toggle 24-Hour Time on or off from this menu.
Changing Time Manually
- Open Settings from your home screen
- Tap General.
- Tap Date & Time.
- Turn off the switch for Set Automatically.
- Tap the Time Zone to search for a city, or tap the date and time numbers below to pick a custom time.
Switching to 12-Hour or 24-Hour Format
- Go to Settings > General > Date & Time.
- Find the 24-Hour Time toggle.
- Switch it on for a 24-hour clock (like 17:00) or off for a standard 12-hour clock (like 5:00 PM).
You can also tap “Time Zone” separately in this same menu to manually choose a different city or region if you need your iPad’s time zone label to differ from where it is currently automatically detecting.
Pro Tip:
If Set Automatically is enabled but your iPad still shows the wrong time, don’t immediately set the clock manually. First check Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → System Services → Setting Time Zone and make sure it is enabled. This allows iPadOS to detect the correct time zone automatically, especially after traveling.
Fixing Common Time Zone Problems After Travel
Travelers run into this more than anyone else. You land in a new time zone, and your iPad either stays on your old time zone for hours, or updates to the wrong one entirely. Here is how to sort it out quickly.
Toggle Airplane Mode off and back on
This forces your iPad to reconnect to nearby cell towers or Wi-Fi networks, which often triggers a fresh, accurate time zone detection almost immediately.
Manually confirm Location Services permissions
As mentioned above, without Location Services enabled for System Services specifically, your iPad has no reliable way to know where you physically are, so it cannot automatically correct the time zone even with “Set Automatically” switched on.
Restart the iPad
A simple restart after landing often clears whatever cached time zone data was carried over from your departure location, letting the device pick up the correct one fresh.
Manually set the time zone as a temporary fix
If you need it corrected immediately and do not have time to troubleshoot, follow the manual steps above and select your current city directly from the Time Zone list. You can always switch “Set Automatically” back on later once you are confident the automatic detection is working properly again.
Why an Incorrect Clock Can Break Other Things on Your iPad
It is worth understanding why this setting matters more than it might seem like it should. Two factor authentication codes, the six digit numbers many banking and email apps require, are generated based on the exact current time and expire within a narrow window, often just thirty seconds. If your iPad’s clock is even a minute or two off, these codes can fail to work even though you entered them correctly.
Secure website connections can also behave strangely with an incorrect clock, since browsers check certificate validity dates against your device’s current time. If your iPad’s date is significantly wrong, you may see security warnings on completely legitimate websites that would otherwise load normally. If you have run into odd browser warnings or login issues recently, it is worth revisiting our guide on how to turn on cookies on iPad as well, since cookie and time related login issues often get mistaken for one another.
File timestamps are another quiet casualty. If you have ever downloaded something and the “date added” looked completely wrong, an incorrect clock is very often the actual cause rather than anything wrong with the download itself. Our guide on where to find downloads on your iPad is a helpful companion here if file organization has felt confusing lately for the same underlying reason.
What to Do If the Date and Time Menu Is Greyed Out
Occasionally the “Set Automatically” toggle appears greyed out and cannot be switched off, which usually points to one specific cause rather than a bug.
Check for Screen Time restrictions
If Screen Time content restrictions are active on the iPad, either set by you or by a parent or guardian on a shared or managed device, Date & Time settings can be locked deliberately to prevent tampering with usage limits tied to the clock. Go to Settings, tap “Screen Time,” then “Content & Privacy Restrictions,” and check whether “Date & Time” appears under the allowed changes list.
Check if the iPad is supervised or managed
iPads set up through a school, workplace, or organization sometimes have configuration profiles installed that intentionally lock certain settings, including the clock, to keep every device consistent. If this applies to you, the setting needs to be changed by whoever manages the device, not from the iPad itself.
If restrictions are not the issue and the setting still will not budge, a full restart, or in more stubborn cases a factory reset, usually resolves it. Our detailed guide on how to factory reset an iPad explains exactly when that step is worth it and how to back up your data first.
Keeping Your iPad’s Clock Accurate Going Forward
Once your time is set correctly, the easiest way to avoid running into this again is simply leaving “Set Automatically” switched on and making sure Location Services stays enabled for System Services. From there, your iPad handles time zones, daylight saving changes, and clock accuracy entirely on its own, without you ever needing to think about it again.
