How to Fix the Wrong Time in Email (Time Zone Settings)

Updated: 18 October 2026 · Applies to: Roundcube webmail (as in cPanel), Outlook, Thunderbird and Apple Mail (steps from the vendors); mail server side tested with Postfix 3.10.6 on Ubuntu 26.04

The time shown next to an email comes from the message's Date header, converted to the time zone of the program you read it in. If all your emails show the wrong time, the time zone of that program or of your computer is wrong: in Roundcube webmail, go to Settings > Preferences > User Interface > Time zone; for Outlook, Thunderbird and Apple Mail, fix the time zone of your computer first. If only the emails from one sender are wrong, that sender's clock is wrong, and you cannot change it on your side.

Which time is wrong?

• All emails, in one program only: that program's time zone setting (sections 2 and 3).
• All emails, in every program and device: the time zone of your computer or phone.
• Emails from one sender: the sender's computer or server has a wrong clock. Tell them; you can see the real arrival time in the headers (section 5).
• Emails sent by your own server or website (contact forms, cron jobs, notifications): the server's clock (section 4).

1. How the time in an email works

The sender's mail program or server writes the Date header when the message is ready to send, with the offset from UTC at the end. RFC 5322 defines it as the time the creator of the message "indicated that the message was complete and ready to enter the mail delivery system". Lab example: we delivered two local test messages with Postfix on Ubuntu 26.04, the first with the server set to India time, the second after switching the server to UTC:

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:46:05 +0530 (IST)
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:16:14 +0000 (UTC)

Both are the same moment, nine seconds apart. A reader converts the header to their own zone, so both show the same time:

$ TZ=Europe/London date -d 'Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:46:05 +0530' '+%a %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z'
Mon 12 Oct 2026 11:16:05 BST
$ TZ=Europe/London date -d 'Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:16:14 +0000' '+%a %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z'
Mon 12 Oct 2026 11:16:14 BST

So the server's time zone does not change the time your readers see, as long as the clock itself is right. A wrong clock does. A common case is a server whose clock was set to local India time while its time zone says UTC: the header then carries India time with a +0000 offset, and in our test such a header showed up five and a half hours late (21:16:05 IST instead of 15:46:05).

2. Change the time zone in Roundcube webmail

Roundcube is the webmail in cPanel (cPanel removed Horde in version 108 and SquirrelMail in version 78, according to its deprecation plan).

1. Log in to webmail (see How to Access cPanel, WHM and Webmail (Login URLs)).
2. Click Settings, then Preferences, then User Interface.
3. In Time zone, pick your zone (for India, Asia/Kolkata).
4. Optional: change Time format and Date format in the same section.
5. Click Save.

Roundcube's default time zone is Auto, which according to its configuration file uses the browser's time zone. If Auto shows the wrong time, your computer's time zone is wrong, or set the zone by hand as above.

3. Outlook, Thunderbird and Apple Mail

• Windows (for classic Outlook and Thunderbird): Start > Settings > Time & language > Date & time. Turn on Set time zone automatically, or turn it off and pick the zone, according to Microsoft.
• Classic Outlook also has its own setting: File > Options > Calendar, then Time zones. Microsoft documents it for the calendar, so check Windows first.
• New Outlook and Outlook on the web: Settings > Calendar > View, then under Time zones, Display my calendar in time zone (Microsoft).
• Thunderbird has no separate time zone for messages: it shows them in the computer's time zone.
• Apple Mail on a Mac: System Settings > General > Date & Time, and turn on Set time zone automatically using your current location (Apple).

Restart the mail program after changing the computer's time zone.

4. Emails sent from your server show the wrong time

Mail from your website, cron jobs or a mail server gets its Date header from the server clock. As section 1 shows, a correct clock in any time zone gives readers the right time, so check the clock first:

timedatectl

Look for System clock synchronized: yes and NTP service: active. To set the time zone and turn on time sync, follow How to Check and Change the Timezone on Debian and Ubuntu (timedatectl and tzdata) or How to Check and Change the Timezone on AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, RHEL and Fedora (timedatectl); on a cPanel server you can also use Setting time zone in the server via WHM.

The server time zone does matter for times that a script writes into the message text, such as "Order placed at 10:00": PHP uses its own date.timezone setting for those. See PHP Date with Timezone: Set the Default Timezone and List All PHP Timezones.

5. See when a message really arrived

Every mail server that handles a message adds a Received header with its own timestamp. In Roundcube, open the message and choose More > Show source. From our test:

Received: by mail.example.com (Postfix, from userid 0)
	id C91721E3A46; Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:46:05 +0530 (IST)
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:46:05 +0530 (IST)

The topmost Received line is your own mail server. If its time is right and the Date is hours away from it, the sender's clock is wrong, not your settings.

Need a hand checking a server clock or mail settings? Open a ticket from the Ucartz client area.

Official documentation: RFC 5322 (Internet Message Format) and Manage time zone settings in Outlook.