How to Show the Full Date (Including Year) in Your macOS Menu Bar

By default, macOS does not allow you to show the year in the menu bar clock. You can show the day and date, but the year isn’t available.

A simple free workaround is to use BitBar, which lets you run tiny scripts that display text in the menu bar. In this guide, you’ll add a script that shows the full date including the year.

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Step 1 – Download BitBar

BitBar is free and open-source. Download it from GitHub:

https://github.com/matryer/bitbar

Install it and launch it once. On first run, BitBar will ask you to choose a plugins folder.

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Step 2 – Choose (or Create) Your Plugins Folder

Use this folder path:

~/Documents/BitBar

If the folder doesn’t exist, create it:

mkdir -p ~/Documents/BitBar

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Step 3 – Create the Full Date Plugin

Inside your BitBar folder, create a file named:

fulldate.1m.sh

The 1m means the script refreshes every minute.

Open that file and paste this:

#!/bin/bash
date '+%a %d %b %Y'

This will display something like:

Wed 31 Dec 2025

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Step 4 – Make the Script Executable

Open Terminal and run:

chmod +x ~/Documents/BitBar/fulldate.1m.sh

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Step 5 – Refresh BitBar

Click the BitBar icon in the menu bar and choose Refresh all.

Your menu bar should now show the full date including the year.

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Optional: Customize the Date Format

You can change the output by editing the date format string.

European numeric format

date '+%d/%m/%Y'

ISO format

date '+%Y-%m-%d'

Long format

date '+%A %d %B %Y'

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Optional: Hide the macOS Clock

If you don’t want both the default clock and BitBar showing at the same time:

• Go to System Settings → Control Center → Clock
• Disable Show in Menu Bar

BitBar will then be your single menu bar date display. If your OS does not permit hiding the macOS clock, you can use a third party app like Bartender. Alternatively you can use the option to choose the analog clock, which only shows a discreet analog clock.

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Position the BitBar Date Instead of the macOS Clock

macOS does not allow third-party menu bar items to occupy the absolute far-right system clock position. However, you can place your BitBar date at the rightmost position of the bar so it behaves visually like the built-in one.

1. Hold the ⌘ Command key.
2. Click and drag the BitBar date item in the menu bar.
3. Drag it all the way to the right until it snaps next to the system clock.
4. Release the mouse.

The BitBar date will now stay anchored in the rightmost position of the bar.