Support

Last updated 25 July 2026

Answers to the questions that come up with WhatTime, and how to reach a human when the answer is not here.

Contact us

Email whattimeapp@tallbottech.com.au. If something is wrong, the fastest fix comes from telling us your macOS version, the exact query you typed or said, the answer you got, and the answer you expected. WhatTime keeps no logs and sends us nothing, so that description is genuinely all we have to go on.

Getting started

What do I need?

Requires macOS 14 or later. Apple silicon and Intel. WhatTime is distributed through the Mac App Store only.

Where is the window?

There isn't one. WhatTime lives in the menubar: click its icon, or press the keyboard shortcut, and the popover opens over whatever you were doing. Escape puts it away. It has no Dock icon and no window to manage, which is the point of it.

I can't see the menubar icon

Almost always a full menubar. macOS hides items on the left of the notch or the clock when it runs out of room, especially on a laptop with a lot of menu extras. Try quitting something else that lives up there, or use a menubar manager to unhide it. If the icon is genuinely absent, quit and reopen WhatTime from Applications.

Changing the keyboard shortcut

Open the popover and go to its settings. The shortcut is only registered while WhatTime is running, and macOS gives an app-level shortcut to whichever app claimed it first, so if yours does nothing, something else is holding that combination.

Asking it things

How should I write a query?

The way you would say it out loud. There is no syntax to learn and nothing to get wrong:

• what time is it in Hong Kong
• 9am sydney time to london
• next monday 2pm london

Capitalisation does not matter, and neither does the word "time". If you leave the destination off, WhatTime converts into your Mac's own timezone and marks that row so you can see the default was assumed rather than stated.

It didn't recognise my city

WhatTime matches against timezone names, major cities, and common country names. A small town usually is not in that set: use the nearest large city in the same zone, or the country. If you are asking about a country that spans several zones, name the city, because the country on its own is ambiguous and WhatTime will not guess which half you meant.

The answer is an hour out

Check the date you asked about. Offsets change across daylight saving boundaries, so a conversion for next month can differ from the same conversion today, and that difference is the correct answer rather than a bug. WhatTime uses the rules in force on the day in question, including for future dates.

If the date is right and the answer still looks wrong, check that your Mac's own timezone is set correctly in System Settings, since every unqualified conversion is relative to it. If both of those check out, email us the query and we will look at it.

Does it know about daylight saving changes?

Yes, from the timezone database bundled with the app. Governments do change these rules, sometimes at short notice, so an updated database ships with app updates. Keep automatic updates on in the App Store and you will get them without thinking about it.

Zones and the dial

Pinning the zones you use

Add a zone and it stays until you remove it. Drag to reorder them into whatever order matches how you think about your day, and that order persists between launches.

Using the dial

Grab a knob and sweep it through the day. Every pinned zone re-reads as you move, so you can find a workable hour by dragging rather than by retyping a query for each candidate. The shaded arc is daytime, and every row carries a day or night marker.

Dictation

The mic button does nothing

WhatTime uses the speech recognition built into macOS, which needs two permissions: Microphone and Speech Recognition, both under System Settings, Privacy and Security. If you declined either the first time, macOS will not ask again, so switch them on there. Some languages also need a speech pack downloaded by macOS before recognition works offline.

Typing does exactly the same thing as speaking. The same rules read both, so nothing is lost by leaving the microphone off.

It heard the wrong city

WhatTime echoes back what it understood, so you can see the misheard word rather than just a surprising answer. Edit the text and it re-converts. Place names are the hardest thing for any speech recogniser, so for an unusual one, typing is faster than arguing.

Privacy and data

Does it need an internet connection?

No. WhatTime makes no network requests at all. Timezone data ships inside the app, so it works on a plane, and there is nothing to sync.

What do you collect?

Nothing. There is no account, no server, and no analytics. The Privacy Policy sets out the detail, including the two things that involve Apple rather than us.

How do I remove it?

Drag WhatTime from Applications to the Trash, the same as any Mac app. Its preferences are your pinned zones and display settings, and they go with it. There is no account to close, because there was never one to open.

Buying, updates, and refunds

Where do I get it?

The Mac App Store, and nowhere else. There is no direct download, no other store, and no licence key. If you find WhatTime anywhere else, it is not from us.

I bought it. Do I have to buy it again on my other Mac?

No. Sign in to the App Store with the same Apple Account and install it from your Purchased list.

Refunds and billing

Apple handles every purchase, so refunds go through Apple rather than us. Request one at reportaproblem.apple.com. We never see your payment details and cannot issue a refund ourselves. Tell us what went wrong anyway; if it is something we can fix, we would rather fix it.

How do updates work?

Through the App Store, like any other app there. WhatTime never checks for updates on its own, because it makes no network requests. What changed in each version is on the Release notes page.