Change Calendar Week Start Day on Ubuntu

Ubuntu uses the GNOME desktop environment, which determines how calendars display the first day of the week. Beginning with GNOME 50 (included in Ubuntu 26.04), a dedicated setting became available to define whether weeks start on Monday or Sunday, without modifying locale preferences. This tutorial explains how to change calendar week start day on Ubuntu.

The week start day can be adjusted through GNOME configuration database using the gsettings command-line utility. To make Monday the first day of the week, execute:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.calendar week-start-day 'monday'

To switch back to Sunday, run:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.calendar week-start-day 'sunday'

Command details:

• org.gnome.desktop.calendar - GNOME settings schema responsible for desktop calendar preferences.
• week-start-day - configuration key that controls which day appears as the first day of the week in supported GNOME calendar views.

The change takes effect immediately and appears in the GNOME calendar. This provides a simple way to align the desktop calendar with regional preferences or personal workflow requirements.