How to Change Time in Rust
in Rust
By Nathan Young

Overview
Sometimes, it can get dark in your Rust server world and cause a variety of problems. One of these is the ability to navigate, as almost everything is in pitch blackness. Only specific items or structures can produce light, making most of the world difficult to explore and use. This can lead some server owners to search for solutions, with a popular one being commands. These can change and add time to your Rust world, making the daylight in your control. However, the exact commands to use aren’t too well known in the game’s community, or possibly other methods for doing it. Due to this, we’ve created this Apex Hosting tutorial to walk you through how to change and manage time in Rust.
Console Commands

Editing Rust’s server time is done through commands, only executable from the Console
area in your panel. Whether you’re wanting to switch the days or months, you can do that. Keep in mind that this isn’t a simple day/night cycle, as there are simulated seasons and changes depending on the time. Managing this unique feature is important, as sometimes players want specific times. A good example is Halloween themed events in Rust, leading some to have only dark in-game environments.
As for running these commands, you’ll need to know exactly what to enter for them. It’s fairly straightforward, as there is only one argument to fill out: the amount of time you want. This is represented by the [value]
placeholder, which is always going to be a number without brackets. Review the list below to learn more about each command to use for your server’s time.
Command | Description |
---|---|
env.time [value] | Changes the current time of the server. |
env.day [value] | Changes the current day of the world. |
env.month [value] | Edits the current server’s month. |
env.year [value] | Edits the current year of the world. |
env.addtime [value] | Adds extra time (hours) to the current values. |
Changing the Time
Before you start to use console commands to change time in Rust, double-check if the game is selected in the panel. Additionally, confirm the server is online so no problems arise when attempting to execute commands. When everything looks correct, follow along below.
- Head towards your Apex server panel and click
Console
near the top left corner. - From here, input your desired command in the text box.
- After typing it in, either press
Send
orEnter
on your keyboard. - Once the command is executed, you’ll see confirmation messages.
Note: If you don’t see any return messages, the command was not sent.
uMod Plugins

Instead of using commands, plugins from uMod can help you change the time in Rust. There are two main ones that players use, Skip Night Vote and Time of Day. Both of these achieve the same goal, but through different ways. Following this, you may want to test each one to see what’s best suited for your server. Installing Rust plugins is simplified with our panel, as it only requires a few clicks. We encourage you to try them out if you aren’t satisfied with console commands. Other plugins are available online, which may be better than the ones we provided. Regardless, there are plenty of methods for you to change time in Rust.
Common Issues
If you’re attempting to use time commands and they aren’t working, double-check you’re entering the correct [value]
argument. For example, some server owners may keep the brackets and it’ll become unrecognizable. However, others may try to use these commands in the game instead of the Console
. Make sure to always use them in the panel under the corresponding area, as it won’t work in-game.
This particular situation is extremely common, as many try changing the time to random values. It’s encouraged to keep them between 0 to 24, at least for the env.time command. For reference, 12 is considered middle of the day in Rust since it’s half of the maximum value. However, other commands may not entirely change the time due to similar seasons and times. Changing the month by one value isn’t going to make a huge difference, but continuing to do that will.
Installing plugins require you to restart the server, so make sure to do this after uploading the files in the respective FTP location. Otherwise, the problem may originate from using the wrong folder to install the plugins. These have to be in the .../oxide/plugins
directory to successfully load, but uMod has to be enabled too. Luckily, our panel by default activates this in Customizations
from the main panel.
Useful Links
How to Become Admin on a Rust Server
How to Use Rust Oxide Commands
Adding Plugins to Rust Servers
Additional Rust Server Tutorials