Force date/time/clock sync

Question

My Snow Leopard macbook is set to Set date and time automatically: Apple Americas/U.S. (time.apple.com), but despite sitting idle for several hours (with internet connection), it has yet to do any syncing, the date remains off by ~2 days.

How about trace routing time.apple.com and then trying a different ntp client against that server? — mindless.panda, Dec 20 '11 at 15:59

score 65 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 05 '21 at 10:17

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From terminal:

sudo ntpdate -u time.apple.com

macOS Catalina:

sudo sntp -sS pool.ntp.org

edited Feb 05 '21 at 10:17

Be optimistic

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answered Oct 05 '12 at 03:04

dazweeja

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Seems to work fine in El Capitan too. – Dawngerpony Dec 14 '15 at 13:59
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Still working in macOS Sierra. – Nick Apr 17 '17 at 20:01
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Confirmed working in High Sierra as well. – khadafi Nov 24 '17 at 14:21
Confirmed still working in HS. – yiwei May 02 '18 at 23:59
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Confirmed *NOT* working in Mojave, as `ntpdate` and co have been removed. See [this excellent answer](https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/117865/) for up-to-date instructions. – Alex Ryan Sep 05 '19 at 17:55

score 4 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 13 '17 at 15:24

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Per the ntpdate man page, the accepted answer will become obsolete when ntpdate is retired. If you encounter this problem, this will do the equivalent:

sudo ntpd -q

ntpd : ...sets and maintains the system time of day in syn- chronism with Internet standard time servers.

-q : Set the time and quit.

Sources:

edited Jun 13 '17 at 15:24

Greenonline

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answered Jun 13 '17 at 13:58

GrnMtnBuckeye

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This was the only command that worked in High Sierra for me. – Elad Nava Jan 08 '22 at 18:04

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 07 '20 at 14:51

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I ran these two commands on Mojave:

sudo systemsetup -setnetworktimeserver pool.ntp.org
sudo sntp -sS pool.ntp.org

Following https://superuser.com/a/1479345 following two answers on https://apple.stackexchange.com/q/117864

answered Apr 07 '20 at 14:51

A T

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 05 '19 at 17:57

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The currently accepted answer does NOT work in Mojave, as ntpdate and co have been removed.

See this excellent answer on the Apple StackExchange for up-to-date instructions.

answered Sep 05 '19 at 17:57

Alex Ryan

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Please quote the essential parts of the answer from the reference link(s), as the answer can become invalid if the linked page(s) change. – DavidPostill Apr 07 '20 at 15:48
The linked answer is more likely to be updated with new helpful information than it is to disappear. Links were invented precisely so that we don't have to copy-paste information everywhere it's used. Unnecessary denormalization [is bad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself)! – Alex Ryan Apr 08 '20 at 16:57
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Unfortunately that's not what we do here. We are not Wikipedia. A class example is Microsoft who broke huge numbers of links and deleted the content. Please follow the Stack Exchange conventions as instructed. Please read [Your answer is in another castle: when is an answer not an answer? - Meta Stack Exchange](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/225370/your-answer-is-in-another-castle-when-is-an-answer-not-an-answer) – DavidPostill Apr 08 '20 at 17:02

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 20 '11 at 15:40

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you can go into the system preferences and reset the time manualy, and then set the time to sync automaticly again once you are back up to speed with whatever day/week/month you need. i am not sure why its not syncing with apple, but you can just set the day properly and it will be accurate as long as you dont cross too many time zones.

answered Dec 20 '11 at 15:40

Jon Valentine

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Many time sync utilities have safeguards, where they won't sync if the time difference is too large, to prevent disasters if, for example, time server is compromised, etc. So, set the time roughly right manually, then it should sync by itself. – haimg Dec 20 '11 at 16:05

Force date/time/clock sync

5 Answers5