Ever since Google introduced the Calendar View widget in ChromeOS in version 104, there has been a lot of discussion about how to improve it. One of the most requested features for it, aside from having the ability to integrate all of your Google calendars, is how to change the start day of the week to monday instead of sunday. Many thought that this setting could be controlled by changing your weekly start day directly in the Calendar, but unfortunately, this didn’t translate to changing it in the widget.
Fortunately, the question came up again on Reddit, where u/guzman77 offered a solution that they found by trying to do the opposite and change their start day to Sunday. This fix was spotted by About Chromebooks, who reported on it. The trick relies on changing the device language of your Chromebook to that of a location where Monday is considered the first day of the week.
This realization led me down an interesting rabbit hole. As an American, I have always known that Sunday is the official first day of the week on the calendar, while Monday is the first day of the work week. But, unbeknownst to me, there are places in the world where Monday is actually the official first day of the week. It all has to do with ISO 8601 – an international standard covering the worldwide exchange and communication of data related to date and time – which established that the first day of the week is Monday in the Gregorian calendar. Nevertheless, Although the United States also uses the Gregorian calendar, it follows the ancient and religious custom of considering Saturday (El Sabbath) as the last day of the week and Sunday as the most important and therefore as the first day.
This fix is therefore not officially an issue affecting anyone outside of the US, requires you to choose a language other than “English (United States)” in your language settings. This is how you do it:
Change the language of your ChromeOS device
In your Chromebook’s settings, Navigate to the “Languages and Inputs” section. Once there, tap the first option, which is for device language, not to be confused with input language and keyboard. A popup will appear to select a language from a long list. For English speakers, type “English” in the search field and select “English (Canada)” in the search results.
You will be prompted to confirm and restart for the change to take effect. Once your Chromebook restarts, you’ll notice that the calendar view widget will now display Monday as the first day of the week, as well as display the order in which the date appears below it in “MonthDay” format instead of “Month Day” as customary in the United States
I just want the steps!
- In your Chromebook’s settings, navigate to “Languages and Inputs” section.
- Click on the first option, which is for the device language.
- for English, write in English” in the search field.
- Select “English (Canada)” of the options.
- Confirm and restart your Chromebook.
