How to find users timezone in Java

It is a very common requirement to find the timezone of users when they are spread across different time zones. Whether it’s event timings, notifications, etc., the user experience will be enhanced by displaying time-related information accurately in the user’s local time zone.

In this article, we will discuss two popular methods to retrieve the user’s Timezone information in Java.

Using Timezone

Java’s timezone class allows us to work with timezones and retrieve the default timezone. Following is an example of how to use it.

import java.util.TimeZone;

public class UserTimezoneExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Get the default timezone
        TimeZone userTimezone = TimeZone.getDefault();

        // Display the user's timezone ID
        System.out.println("User's Timezone ID: " + userTimezone.getID());
    }
}

Using ZoneId

Java 8 introduced the ZoneId class, which provides a more user-friendly API for working with timezones. Following is an example:

import java.time.ZoneId;

public class UserTimezoneExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Get the user's system timezone
        ZoneId userTimezone = ZoneId.systemDefault();

        // Display the user's timezone ID
        System.out.println("User's Timezone ID: " + userTimezone.getId());
    }
}

References:

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/TimeZone.html

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/time/ZoneId.html