Can the date format in SQL Server 2022 Agent notification emails be changed?

I am not aware of any documented setting that controls the date/time format used in built-in SQL Server Agent notification emails. The Microsoft documentation for SQL Server Agent mail and alert configuration does not appear to mention a configurable timestamp format.

If the US format is causing operational issues, a possible workaround would be to replace the built-in SQL Server Agent notifications with custom notifications sent through Database Mail, where the message content and date formatting can be controlled by your own T-SQL logic.

Since you are seeing UK formatting on SQL Server 2017 and US formatting on SQL Server 2022, it may also be worth checking whether this behavior changes after applying the latest SQL Server 2022 CU. If the behavior persists across fully patched SQL Server 2022 instances, it could indicate a product change or regression rather than a configuration issue.

Database mail is not my not speciality. I made an attempt to set it up on my machine to test, but it did not really work out. We have database mail set up at my client, but I would not be surprised if the applicable settings are US English, so little point in testing.

However, if you get the right format on SQL 2017 and the wrong format on SQL 2022, I am quite sure that it is a local issue. I can't imagine that Microsoft would change this between versions. You say that Windows regional settings and the service account for Agent has UK format. I would double-check the format for the service account. And I would check the system locale. Go to Region under the Control Panel. Select the Administrative tab and check "Language for non-Unicode programs". You want that to be English (United Kingdom). If not click the button Change System Locale. Note: You need to restart Windows for the change to take effect.

By the way, what does "SELECT @@version" return?

Hi @Ananthu GP

If a UK format is required, the usual approach is to bypass the built-in notification body and instead:

• Send a custom Database Mail message from a job step using sp_send_dbmail.
• Use an alerting framework that generates its own email content.
• Use custom failure-handling jobs/stored procedures where the timestamp can be formatted explicitly (FORMAT(...,'dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss','en-GB')).

If this change in behavior is important for your environment, it may be worth checking the specific SQL Server 2022 CU level and searching Microsoft feedback/known issues, as the difference between 2017 and 2022 suggests a product behavior change rather than a configuration issue.

Thanks.