[ruby-on-rails] 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

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!

In Ruby on Rails 6.0.1 go to config > locales > application.rb y agrega lo siguiente:

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

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

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.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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.