Online Timer
A countdown timer runs for a set length and sounds an alarm at zero. Pick a length below, press start, and leave the tab open. Nothing to install and no account to make.
21 lengths, from one minute to two hours. Every one of them runs in the browser, keeps time accurately while the tab is in the background, and is free.
Short timers
Ten minutes and under. These are the lengths used for breaks, drills, exercises and anything where the point is a hard stop rather than a stretch of concentration.
Drills, transitions and anything that should end before you talk yourself out of it.
The two minute rule, brushing teeth, and steeping tea that turns bitter if forgotten.
Soft boiled eggs, black tea, breathing exercises and short rounds.
Tabata intervals, the four minute mile, and French press coffee.
Breaks, tidying, meditation and anything that needs a hard stop.
Legal billing increments, short drills and tenth-of-an-hour tracking.
The scientific seven minute workout and short circuits.
Cooking, extended stretching and short study bursts.
Matching the standard snooze interval, and short naps.
Meditation, breaks, tidying and warm-ups.
Focus timers
Twelve to forty-five minutes. This is the band a single task fits into, and where every study method from Pomodoro to the Cooper test puts its work block.
The Cooper test, timed runs and short focused reading.
Quick focus sprints, stand-ups, and the Pomodoro long break.
Power naps, eye breaks, and exercise blocks.
The Pomodoro work block, study sessions and single-task focus.
Meetings, workouts, cooking and half-hour work blocks.
Longer focus blocks, lessons, and deep tasks that need a warm-up.
Lessons, appointments, gym sessions and sustained focus.
Long timers
Fifty minutes and over. Long enough for an exam, a lecture, a gym session or an uninterrupted stretch of deep work, and long enough that the break afterwards has to be real.
Count the blocks, not just the minutes
A timer ends and forgets. PomoTodo keeps the session, ties it to a task and a project, and turns a week of focus blocks into a figure you can look at on Friday.
Free plan tracks unlimited focus time across unlimited tasks. No card required.
Every timer length compared
| Length | Seconds | Decimal hours | Per 8 hour day |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 minute | 60 | 0.02 | 480 |
| 2 minutes | 120 | 0.03 | 240 |
| 3 minutes | 180 | 0.05 | 160 |
| 4 minutes | 240 | 0.07 | 120 |
| 5 minutes | 300 | 0.08 | 96 |
| 6 minutes | 360 | 0.1 | 80 |
| 7 minutes | 420 | 0.12 | 68 |
| 8 minutes | 480 | 0.13 | 60 |
| 9 minutes | 540 | 0.15 | 53 |
| 10 minutes | 600 | 0.17 | 48 |
| 12 minutes | 720 | 0.2 | 40 |
| 15 minutes | 900 | 0.25 | 32 |
| 20 minutes | 1,200 | 0.33 | 24 |
| 25 minutes | 1,500 | 0.42 | 19 |
| 30 minutes | 1,800 | 0.5 | 16 |
| 40 minutes | 2,400 | 0.67 | 12 |
| 45 minutes | 2,700 | 0.75 | 10 |
| 50 minutes | 3,000 | 0.83 | 9 |
| 1 hour | 3,600 | 1 | 8 |
| 1 hour 30 minutes | 5,400 | 1.5 | 5 |
| 2 hours | 7,200 | 2 | 4 |
| Decimal hours are rounded to two places, the convention payroll systems use. Blocks per day counts whole blocks in eight hours and ignores breaks, so the practical number is lower. | |||
Timers that do more than count down
A countdown is one block. When you want a rhythm rather than a single block, the Pomodoro timers run work and break stages on a cycle and keep count of the rounds. When you want to measure elapsed time instead of remaining time, use the stopwatch. When the time needs to end up on an invoice, the time tracker tags each session to a project and prices it.
Questions about online timers
What is the most commonly used timer length?
Five minutes, by a wide margin. It is the default short break in the Pomodoro cycle, the length people set for a quick tidy, and short enough to use for starting a task you are avoiding. Ten, fifteen and twenty minutes follow it.
Do these timers keep running when I switch tabs?
Yes. Each timer stores the moment it should finish and reads the clock against it, rather than counting down tick by tick. Browsers throttle background tabs, which makes a counting timer lose minutes, but reading a fixed deadline stays correct however long the tab was hidden. Closing the tab does end the countdown.
What is the difference between a timer and a Pomodoro timer?
A timer counts down once and stops. A Pomodoro timer runs a cycle: a work block, a short break, and a longer break after four rounds, repeating until you stop it. If you want the cycle handled for you, use the Pomodoro timers. If you want one countdown that ends, use these.
Can I set a length that is not listed?
Yes. Open any timer close to the length you want and use the plus one and plus five minute buttons to adjust it. The pages listed here are the lengths people set most often, not the only lengths the timer can run.