How to show seconds on the clock in GNOME 3?

Question

Is it possible to show the seconds on the clock in GNOME 3?

Answer 1

Not sure when this path changed, but as of Ubuntu 13.04 the seconds display can be set in the terminal with:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-show-seconds true

To turn seconds display off:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-show-seconds false

and checked with:

gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-show-seconds

Answer 2

GUI way:

1. launch gnome-tweak-tool, sometimes called Advanced Settings
2. click the Top Bar menu
3. enable Show seconds

Answer 3

The GUI way to do this, (on 22.04 LTS) seems to be:

sudo apt install gnome-tweaks

Before 20.04 LTS the package name was different:

sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool

and then launch "Tweaks" either by searching for it in Applications menu or launching gnome-tweaks from terminal.

From there you'll see something like this:

Answer 4

Yes, run this command in a Terminal:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.clock show-seconds true

And you can verify with:

gsettings get org.gnome.shell.clock show-seconds

Or you can install dconf-tools and use dconf-editor to browse to org.gnome.shell.clock

Answer 5

For MATE Desktop (the continuation and fork of GNOME 2 with GTK+ 3 support), you can achieve this using the graphical user interface (GUI)!

• Right-click on date and time:
  
• Go to Preferences
• Now enable the Show seconds
  

The end result:

Drink beer and Vote me up, cause it rocks!

Answer 6

Ubuntu 24.01+ has changed the way to personalize the clock.

"Top Bar" is no longer present in gnome-tweaks tool, all of their settings are now present direct below built-in Settings > Date & Time menu.