Manage time zone settings in Outlook (Classic Outlook)

Applies To: Outlook for Microsoft 365 Outlook 2024 Outlook 2021 Outlook 2019 Outlook 2016 Office for business Office 365 Small Business Microsoft 365 admin Outlook on the web Outlook.com Microsoft Office New Outlook for Windows.

Learn how to set your time zone, and the date and time format settings in Outlook.

Change time zone in classic Outlook

1. Open classic Outlook and click the File tab.

2. Select Options and then Calendar.

3. Under Time zones, type a name for the current time zone in the Label box.

4. In Time zone select the time zone you want to use.

Add additional time zones 

In the latest versions of Outlook for Microsoft 365, you can display up to three separate time zones in the Calendar. In other versions of classic Outlook, including Outlook 2019 LTSC and Outlook 2016, you can only display two time zones.

1. Select File > Options in classic Outlook.

2. On the Calendar tab, under Time zones, select Show a second time zone and if needed, Show a third time zone.

3. If you want, add a Label for each time zone.

Swap time zone positions

When you have two or three time zones displayed in classic Outlook Calendar, you can swap their positions.

1. Select File > Options in classic Outlook.

2. On the Calendar tab, under Time zones, select Swap Time Zones.

Remove additional time zones

1. Select File > Options in classic Outlook.

2. In Calendar, under Time zones, clear the checkboxes for showing other time zones.

More about time zones in Outlook

The start and end times for items in the Outlook Calendar are saved in the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) format, an international time standard similar to Greenwich Mean Time.

When you send a meeting request to an attendee in a different time zone, the meeting item is displayed at the respective local times on each person's calendar but saved in UTC.

For example, a meeting organizer in the United States Pacific time zone sends a meeting request for 2:00 P.M. Pacific time to an attendee in the United States Mountain time zone. The attendee sees the meeting as starting at 3:00 P.M. Mountain time. In both cases, the meeting is saved as starting at the same UTC time of 10:00 P.M.

If two time zones are shown, the meeting organizer's time zone is used as the reference point. If you organize a meeting and display free/busy time for invitees from other time zones, their busy times are adjusted so that they appear correctly in your time zone. The second time zone is visible only when you view the calendar in day or week view.