Your next moment starts here.
Set your countdown
Choose a preset or enter your own duration.
Keep this page open for the alert. Sleeping devices and muted tabs can delay or silence it. The remaining time catches up when you return.
Your countdown is restored after a reload in this tab when browser storage is available.
How do I use the online countdown timer?
Choose a preset or enter hours, minutes, and seconds, then select Start. Pause holds the remaining time; Start resumes it. Reset restores the configured duration. Turn on the sound option before starting if you want a short alert when the countdown finishes.
A countdown measures what remains
A five-minute timer starts with 300 seconds. After 100 seconds of running time, 200 seconds remain. Time spent paused does not count toward the running interval.
| Elapsed time | Time remaining |
|---|---|
| 00:00 | 05:00 |
| 01:40 | 03:20 |
| 05:00 | 00:00 |
Set a duration that works for you
Use a short countdown for a break, a study interval, a recipe step, or a practice session. Presets give you a quick starting point, and the three duration fields let you set a more specific interval. The timer accepts durations from 1 second to 99 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds.
Minutes and seconds must each be between 0 and 59. To count down for more than an hour, put the hours in the hours field rather than entering a large minute value. Pause a running countdown before changing its duration. Selecting a preset also resets the remaining time to that preset.
Pause, resume, and reset
Pause stops the countdown at its remaining duration. Select Start again to continue from that point. Reset returns to the configured duration and clears the completion message. When a countdown reaches zero, the page displays a completion message and never continues into negative time.
While the timer is running, its deadline is used to calculate the remaining time. This avoids accumulating an error every time a browser delays a screen update. Returning to a background tab refreshes the display from the deadline instead of counting only the updates that were visible.
Sound and background tabs
The sound option is off until you enable it. Start the countdown with sound selected to let the browser prepare the alert. A muted tab, restricted audio settings, a sleeping device, or a closed page can prevent the alert or delay it until the page becomes active again.
Keep the page open and the device awake when hearing the alert matters. This is a browser timer, so it does not install a background alarm service. The visible completion message remains useful even when audio is unavailable. Changing your device clock while the timer is running can affect its deadline.
Reloading and privacy
When browser storage is available, the countdown state is saved for this tab. Reloading the same tab restores the deadline or paused duration. If the deadline has passed, the restored countdown shows that it is complete. Closing the tab may clear this session data.
The timer does not need an account and does not send your duration to a timer service. A countdown measures how much of a chosen duration remains. For counting upward and recording laps, use the Online Stopwatch. For comparing local times in different places, use the World Clock.
Time-zone directory: IANA 2026e. Live regional rules come from your browser. IANA Time Zone Database