Free online countdown timer
An online countdown timer shows the days, hours, minutes and seconds left until a moment you choose. Pick a date, a time and a time zone, and this one starts at once. Share it as a link, put it on a website, or go full screen. Nothing is saved and no account is needed.
New Year
How to use this countdown timer
- Choose a starting point: New Year, Christmas, Black Friday, or a custom event of your own.
- Give it a title, then set the date and the time it should reach zero.
- Pick the time zone the deadline belongs to. It starts as the zone your device is set to.
- Choose a style. The countdown above changes as you type, so what you see is what you share.
- Copy the share link, open the countdown page, or copy the embed code for a website.
The full screen button in the corner of the countdown fills the screen with it, which is the way to put a countdown on a projector, a TV or a second monitor. Press Escape to leave full screen.
Share a countdown with a link
A shareable timer usually means an account and a saved page. This one does not need either. Everything about the countdown, its title, its deadline, its style and its end line, is written into the link after the # sign. Browsers never send that part of an address to a server, so the countdown is not stored by us, not logged by us, and not readable by anybody who does not have the link.
The link records the exact moment the countdown ends rather than a date on somebody's calendar. A guest who opens it in another time zone counts to the same instant, and the page tells them when that is. Because nothing is stored, a link cannot be edited after it is shared. Make the countdown again with the change and send the new link.
Put a countdown timer on your website
The embed code is one block of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, a few kilobytes, that you paste where the countdown should appear. Most website builders and content systems have a custom HTML block for this. It loads no library, no font and nothing from this site, so it keeps working if we are offline, and it keeps counting to the right moment for a visitor in any time zone.
It is written to be readable: a screen reader hears the time left once a minute rather than every second, and a visitor who has asked their device for reduced motion sees minutes without the ticking seconds. The HTML countdown timer page explains each part of the code, lets you turn the seconds off, and shows how to change the deadline by hand.
A countdown timer in an email needs an image
The website code will not work in an email, and neither will any other countdown built with JavaScript. Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail and every other email client strip scripts out of a message before it is shown. The only thing that moves in an inbox is an animated image, so an email countdown is a GIF that is drawn at the moment the email is opened, counting from that moment to your deadline.
That is what this site is built for. The free email countdown timer generator makes that image and gives you the code to paste into your email platform. A timer from the free generator works for 500 opens without an account, and for 1,000 once you sign in and claim it. How the image behaves in each email client is set out in the guide to countdown timers in email.
Time zones and daylight saving
The date and time you enter are read in the time zone you pick, with that zone's own daylight saving rules for that day. A New Year countdown set to midnight in London reaches zero at midnight in London, which is 7 in the evening in New York. The presets work the same way: Christmas means 00:00 on 25 December in the zone you chose, and Black Friday means 00:00 on the day after the fourth Thursday of November.
Two moments a year need a rule. On the night clocks go forward, a time such as 02:30 does not exist, and the countdown moves it to the first moment that does. On the night clocks go back, 01:30 happens twice, and the countdown uses one of the two. If either matters, pick a time outside that hour.
What people count down to
Holidays and New Year, a wedding or a birthday, an exam, a product launch, a sale that opens or closes, a webinar, a release. For the campaigns among them, a countdown in the email is usually the one that does the work. The pages on a flash sale, a product launch and a webinar show how a deadline is set for each.
Questions about the countdown timer
Is this countdown timer free
Yes, with no account, no watermark and no limit on how many people open a shared link. The countdown runs in the browser of whoever is looking at it, so there is nothing on our side to count or to charge for.
Is my countdown saved anywhere
No. The settings live in the share link itself, after the # sign, and a browser never sends that part of an address to a server. Close the tab and the countdown exists only in the links you copied. To change one, make it again and share the new link.
Which time zone does a shared countdown use
The one you pick when you make it. The link stores the exact moment the countdown ends, so a friend in Tokyo and a friend in Chicago reach zero at the same instant, and the page tells each of them when that is in your zone.
Can I put this countdown on my website
Yes. Copy the embed code under the timer and paste it into any page or block that accepts HTML. It is one block of HTML, CSS and JavaScript with no outside files, so it keeps working even if this site is down. The HTML countdown timer page has more options for it.
Can I put this countdown in an email
Not this one. Email clients do not run JavaScript, so the embed code shows nothing in an inbox. An email countdown has to be an image that is drawn when the email is opened, and the free email countdown timer generator makes one.
What happens when the countdown reaches zero
The numbers are replaced by your end line, "The countdown has ended" unless you wrote another. A link opened after the deadline goes straight to that line.
Does it handle daylight saving time
Yes. The date and time you pick are read in the time zone you pick, with that zone's daylight saving rules on that date. A time that does not exist, such as 02:30 on the night clocks go forward, is moved to the first moment that does.