How to use the countdown
- Pick the date. A holiday button (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, Valentine’s Day, Easter) fills in its next date for you.
- Add a time if the moment matters: a flight at 7:45, a launch at noon, a wedding at 3 PM. Without one the countdown runs to midnight at the start of the day.
- Give it a name (Holiday, Exam, Wedding) if you like. The name heads the clock, the answer and the browser tab.
- Tick Working days left or Sleeps left to see those counts under the clock.
The answer above the clock updates by itself as the days pass, and the clock keeps running in a background tab. Your date, time and name are kept in this browser for your next visit; nothing is sent anywhere.
How to read the numbers
The answer sentence counts calendar days from today’s date, the way people talk: on the evening of December 23, Christmas is “in 2 days”, even though fewer than 48 hours are left. The clock shows the exact time left: whole days of 24 hours, then hours, minutes and seconds. On the same evening it reads 1 day and a few hours, because it counts to midnight at the start of December 25.
Under the clock you get the same span in weeks and days and in months and days (a month is counted to the same date in the next month, so January 31 plus one month is the end of February). Working days are Monday to Friday between today and the day, without either end and without public holidays, which differ by country and employer. Sleeps are the nights left: the night before is the last one.
Once the moment passes, the clock counts up instead (“Since…”), so the same page works for an anniversary, a sobriety or quit date, or the day a project started. Holiday countdowns move on to the next year the day after the holiday, even on a page left open.
Time zones and daylight saving
The countdown runs in your device’s time zone, shown under the clock. A shared countdown counts to the same local date and time for whoever opens it: New Year at midnight is midnight in Auckland, London and Los Angeles, hours apart. For an event that happens at one moment worldwide, like an online launch, set the time in your own zone and tell people it’s your local time.
The clock shows real time: it drops by exactly one second every second and never jumps back when the clocks change for daylight saving. That means a countdown that crosses the change gains or loses an hour against the wall clock: from midnight to a midnight two days later reads 2 days 1 hour in autumn and 1 day 23 hours in spring, because that is how long you really wait. The sentence above the clock counts calendar days, so its number is the clock’s days or one more (the part of today that is left); a clock change never moves it by a whole day.
Full screen, sharing and embedding
Press Full screen (or F) to fill a classroom projector, a smartboard or an office TV with the clock. The buttons fade after a few seconds and the page asks the browser to keep the screen awake. Safari on iPhone doesn’t let pages go full screen, so there the clock fills the browser window instead.
Share result gives you a link to this countdown: the date, the time and the name, nothing else (a birthday link leaves the name out unless you tick the box). The other person sees how long is left in their own time zone and can open it as their own countdown. To show the clock on a blog, a class website or a Notion page, open Put this countdown on your website and copy the code: the widget shows only the clock, with a link back here.
Tips
- Counting down minutes rather than days, for a quiz or a break? The online timer has an alarm and a visual pie.
- Planning the weeks ahead? Print a calendar and cross the days off as the countdown shrinks.
- Organising a gift exchange before the holidays? Draw names with the Secret Santa generator.