How to change default timezone for Active Record in Rails?

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I have decided to compile this answer because all others seem to be incomplete.

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

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

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