Timers & Productivity
Simple time tools that run right in your browser — a countdown timer with an alarm, a lap stopwatch, and a Pomodoro timer to keep you focused.
About Timers & Productivity
This is a deliberately small category: three timing tools that do one job each without asking anything of you. There is the online timer, a countdown with an alarm for when something needs to be watched; the online stopwatch, which counts up and records laps; and the Pomodoro timer, which runs the work-and-break cycle for you. Cooks, students, teachers, coaches, presenters and anyone who has ever needed a timer while their phone was in another room end up using one of them.
The choice comes down to which direction you are counting and why. Use the timer when you know the duration in advance and want to be told when it is up — pasta, a laundry cycle, a timed exercise, a five-minute talk. Use the stopwatch when you do not know how long something will take and want to find out, or when you need lap times: intervals on a track, how long a build actually takes, how long each speaker ran over. The Pomodoro timer is not really a timer at all but a method with a timer attached — a focused work block, a short break, repeat, with a longer break every few rounds. It suits work that is easy to drift away from, because the structure comes from the clock rather than from willpower. If you want an absolute date rather than a duration, the everyday calculators category has a countdown to a specific date.
All three are free, need no sign-up, and run entirely in your browser, so nothing you time is recorded anywhere. Two practical notes make them more reliable. Keep the tab open — the countdown continues while the tab is in the background, but browsers throttle background tabs and can be conservative with sound, so an alarm may not fire loudly if the tab is buried or the device is asleep. And allow sound on the page if you want the alarm to be audible; most browsers block audio until you have interacted with the page at least once.
Frequently asked questions
Will the timer keep running if I switch to another tab?
The countdown itself keeps tracking real time, so it will not lose minutes. Browsers do throttle background tabs, though, which can delay the alarm sound or make it fire late. If the timing genuinely matters, keep the tab visible or leave the device awake.
Why can I not hear the alarm?
Almost always because the browser is blocking autoplaying audio until you interact with the page, or because the tab is muted, or the system volume is down. Click somewhere on the page once before starting the timer and check the tab is not muted.
What is the standard Pomodoro cycle?
The classic technique is 25 minutes of focused work followed by a 5 minute break, with a longer break of around 15 to 30 minutes after four cycles. Those numbers are a starting point, not a rule. Plenty of people work better with longer blocks.
Is anything I time saved?
No. These tools run entirely in your browser and record nothing. Reloading the page resets the timer or stopwatch, and lap times are not stored anywhere, so copy them out if you need to keep them.