Countdown Timer
Two ways to count down. The timer counts down a duration — pick a preset like 5 or 15 minutes or type your own, run it fullscreen, and get a beep when it ends. Or switch to counting down to a date and time: name the event, watch the days, hours, minutes, and seconds tick, and copy a share link that carries the countdown with it — no account, no app.
Set a duration
05:00
The timer keeps accurate time in a background tab, and the tab title shows the time remaining while it runs.
Build the launch countdown in Moda
Design a countdown post, event banner, or save-the-date graphic around this date on a real canvas.
Try Moda free →The timer never loses time in a background tab
Browsers throttle timers in tabs you are not looking at, and naive countdown pages that subtract one second per tick fall behind — sometimes by minutes. This timer works differently: when you press Start it records the exact moment the timer should end, and every update recomputes the remaining time from your clock. Switch tabs, lock the laptop, come back — the timer is exactly where it should be, and if the deadline passed while you were away it shows time’s up. While it runs, the remaining time also appears in the tab title, so you can see it from any other tab.
How the share link works
In date mode the link encodes the target date and title in its query string, so sharing a countdown is just sharing a URL — nothing is stored on a server, and the countdown works as long as this page exists. Anyone opening the link sees the time remaining computed live against their own clock, which also means the countdown never drifts: it is recalculated every quarter second from the target, not decremented from when the page loaded. Timer runs are yours alone and are not shareable — a duration only means something against the clock it was started on.
Timezones: the date countdown targets wall-clock time
The target is deliberately a wall-clock time, not a fixed global instant. A countdown to “midnight, December 31” hits zero at each viewer’s own midnight — which is what New Year, store openings, and exam mornings mean. For a single synchronized moment instead (a product launch, a livestream start), state the timezone in the title — “Launch at 9 AM PT” — and viewers elsewhere can read the gap between their countdown and yours; the difference is exactly the timezone offset.
Days, not months, on purpose
The date countdown counts days rather than rolling up to months because months are ambiguous units — “2 months and 3 days” means different day counts depending on which months they are. Days, hours, minutes, and seconds are exact, and for anything under a year, “47 days” communicates urgency better than “1 month and a half” anyway. If you need the duration expressed in months and weeks, the date calculator in the related tools below does that conversion properly.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if I switch tabs or my laptop sleeps while the timer runs?
Nothing is lost. The timer is anchored to the moment it should end, not to a per-second countdown, so it stays accurate through background-tab throttling and sleep. The remaining time shows in the tab title while the timer runs, so you can watch it from another tab; the title goes back to normal when you reset the timer or leave the page.
Does the timer make a sound when it ends?
Yes — the duration timer plays a short triple beep at zero, generated in your browser, and you can mute it with the checkbox next to the duration. The beep only plays if the browser allows audio for the page; the big “Time’s up” display and the tab title change happen regardless. The date countdown stays silent and shows an “It’s time!” message instead.
Is there a 5-minute (or 10, 15, 30, 60 minute) timer?
Yes — the preset buttons start a 1, 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minute timer with one click, and the minutes and seconds fields take any duration in between. Presets start immediately; use Pause and Reset to control the run, and Fullscreen for digits visible across a room.
Can I share the countdown with other people?
Date countdowns, yes — copy the link under the countdown. The date and title travel in the URL itself, so the countdown needs no account and never expires. The linked page is this same tool with your event pre-filled, and the viewer can adjust it without affecting your link.
Will the date countdown show the same time for someone in another timezone?
They will see a countdown to that date and time on their own clock. For most events — birthdays, deadlines, New Year — that is the right behavior. For one synchronized global instant, put the timezone in the title so viewers know which clock the event follows.