How to change default timezone for Active Record in Rails?

In my application.rb I came across the following comment

# Set Time.zone default to the specified zone and make Active Record auto-convert to this zone.
# Run "rake -D time" for a list of tasks for finding time zone names. Default is UTC.
 config.time_zone = 'Eastern Time (US & Canada)'

As you see from above, I've made config.time_zone to EST time. However, still when records are created in the DB, it looks like datetime is being stored in UTC format.

In the above comment, they say

> ...and make Active Record auto-convert to this zone...

How can I do that, and where?

Also, I'll be deploying this on heroku as well and i'd like the setting to carry over

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

adding following to application.rb works

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

I came to the same conclusion as Dean Perry after much anguish. config.time_zone = 'Adelaide' and config.active_record.default_timezone = :local was the winning combination. Here's what I found during the process.

In my case (Rails 5), I ended up adding these 2 lines in my app/config/environments/development.rb

config.time_zone = "Melbourne"
config.active_record.default_timezone = :local

That's it! And to make sure that Melbourne was read correctly, I ran the command in my terminal:

bundle exec rake time:zones:all

and Melbourne was listing in the timezone I'm in!

If you want to set the timezone to UTC globally, you can do the following in Rails 4:

# Inside config/application.rb
config.time_zone = "UTC"
config.active_record.default_timezone = :utc

Be sure to restart your application or you won't see the changes.

I had to add this block to my environment.rb file and all was well :)

Rails.application.configure do
    config.time_zone = "Pacific Time (US & Canada)"
    config.active_record.default_timezone = :local
end

• I added it before the line Rails.application.initialize!

In Ruby on Rails 6.0.1 go to config > locales > application.rb and add the following:

require_relative 'boot'

require 'rails/all'

# Require the gems listed in Gemfile, including any gems
# you've limited to :test, :development, or :production.
Bundler.require(*Rails.groups)

module CrudRubyOnRails6
  class Application < Rails::Application
    # Initialize configuration defaults for originally generated Rails version.
    config.load_defaults 6.0

    config.active_record.default_timezone = :local
	config.time_zone = 'Lima'

    # Settings in config/environments/* take precedence over those specified here.
    # Application configuration can go into files in config/initializers
    # -- all .rb files in that directory are automatically loaded after loading
    # the framework and any gems in your application.
  end
end

You can see that I am configuring the time zone with 2 lines:

config.active_record.default_timezone =: local
config.time_zone = 'Lima'

I hope it helps those who are working with Ruby on Rails 6.0.1

On rails 4.2.2, go to application.rb and use config.time_zone='city' (e.g.:'London' or 'Bucharest' or 'Amsterdam' and so on).

It should work just fine. It worked for me.

for Chinese user, just add two lines below to you config/application.rb :

config.active_record.default_timezone = :local
config.time_zone = 'Beijing'

If you want local time to set, add the following text in application.rb

config.time_zone = 'Chennai'

# WARNING: This changes the way times are stored in the database (not recommended)
config.active_record.default_timezone = :local

Then restart your server