Change default timezone

Change Rails timezone AND have Active Record store times in this timezone

application.rb

config.time_zone = 'Eastern Time (US & Canada)'
config.active_record.default_timezone = :local

Change Rails timezone, but continue to have Active Record save in the database in UTC

application.rb

config.time_zone = 'Eastern Time (US & Canada)'

Remarks

**config.active_record.default_timezone** determines whether to use Time.local (if set to :local) or Time.utc (if set to :utc) when pulling dates and times from the database. The default is :utc. [http://guides.rubyonrails.org/configuring.html](http://guides.rubyonrails.org/configuring.html)

If you want to change Rails timezone, but continue to have Active Record save in the database in UTC, use

application.rb

config.time_zone = 'Eastern Time (US & Canada)'

If you want to change Rails timezone AND have Active Record store times in this timezone, use

application.rb

config.time_zone = 'Eastern Time (US & Canada)'
config.active_record.default_timezone = :local

Warning: you really should think twice, even thrice, before saving times in the database in a non-UTC format.

**Note**
Do not forget to restart your Rails server after modifying `application.rb`.

Remember that config.active_record.default_timezone can take only two values

• :local (converts to the timezone defined in config.time_zone)
• :utc (converts to UTC)

Here’s how you can find all available timezones

rake time:zones:all