Online timer
A full-screen countdown for the classroom and the exam room: pick a length, press start, and the digits read from the back row.
Common lengths
Everything happens in your browser; no duration and no setting is sent to a server.
For an online exam, Evalmee keeps each candidate's time — extra time included — and hands the paper in automatically when it is up. Open Evalmee
How to use the timer
- 01
Pick a length
The chips set the timer to 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120 or 180 minutes in one click; the field next to them takes any number of minutes. The chosen length is written into the page address, which you can bookmark.
- 02
Start, and project if you need to
"Start" begins the countdown; "Full screen" stretches it across the whole display with the controls hidden. The progress bar and the colour change at five minutes, then at one, can be read from the back of the room.
- 03
Let it run
Pause, resume and "+5 minutes" stay one click away; the lock takes the controls off the screen so that a stray click resets nothing. The end-of-time alarm is optional and off by default.
A full-screen timer for the classroom
A projected timer has one job: to stay readable from the last row without anyone standing up to look at it. Here the digits scale with the window height — on a 1080p projector they take up more than a quarter of the screen — and the dark theme, white on black, is easy on the eyes of a room with the blinds down and on the projector's lamp. The light theme suits a room lit by daylight.
The colour changes five minutes before the end, then at one minute: two thresholds you can move, for instance to ten and two minutes for a two-hour paper. The alarm is off by default — in an exam room it is the invigilator's voice that calls time, not a chime.
Once the page has loaded, nothing more is asked of the network: the timer works offline, and the screen stays awake as long as the countdown is showing. On iPhone and iPad, add the page to the home screen to make the address bar disappear too.
Timers from 5 to 120 minutes: which length for which use
The lengths on offer are not arbitrary: they are the ones set most often in a classroom or an exam room. For each, a candidate with 25 % extra time gets the length multiplied by five quarters, rounded to the minute.
5 minute timer
Long enough to read the instructions, to talk in pairs before sharing with the class, or to prepare an answer for a speaking task. Too short for a mid-way warning: lower the first threshold to one minute, or let the progress bar do the talking.
10 minute timer
The length of a practice exercise, a start-of-lesson routine or a quick question marked on the spot. It is also the length of a supervised break between two parts of a long paper, and a break carries no extra time: ten minutes stay ten minutes for every candidate.
15 minute timer
A quarter of an hour: the format of a short written test, a dictation or the preparation of a presentation. With 25 % extra time, the candidate with an arrangement gets nineteen minutes.
20 minute timer
The preparation time of a language oral or an interview, and the usual length of a twenty-question quiz. Twenty minutes plus 25 % make twenty-five minutes, a figure that needs no rounding.
30 minute timer
Half an hour: the mid-unit class test, the preparation of an oral, the first half of a two-part paper. It is the most-used length on this timer after the short ones. With 25 % extra time it becomes thirty-eight minutes, with 50 % forty-five.
45 minute timer
A teaching period minus the time it takes to settle a room: the real length of most tests given "in an hour", and the most common format for an invigilated quiz. With 25 % extra time, the candidate with an arrangement hands in at fifty-six minutes; with 50 %, at sixty-eight.
1 hour timer
A full sixty minutes: the class exam, the language paper, the short end-of-term test. 25 % extra time takes it to 1 h 15, 50 % to 1 h 30. From one hour up, the display switches to hours, minutes and seconds, and the progress bar says more than the digits themselves.
90 minute timer
An hour and a half, the most common paper length in secondary schools and in the first years of higher education. Its 25 % allowance lands on 1 h 53 — a finish that is easier to show on the wall than to announce, which is what the exam clock is for.
2 hour timer
Two hours, the format of the end-of-term exam and of many public examinations. It is also the length at which a badly built timer starts drifting visibly: here the remaining time is recomputed on every refresh from the intended finish instant, never by adding up clock ticks. 25 % extra time takes the paper to 2 h 30; to show both finish times side by side, switch to the exam clock.
A countdown that does not drift
Most browser timers count by taking one second off at every clock tick. A tab in the background, a laptop put to sleep or a busy machine slow those ticks down, and the countdown falls behind without any sign of it — a few seconds over ten minutes, a minute or more over two hours.
Here the timer remembers the intended finish instant, and the remaining time is the difference between that instant and the current time. A tab woken after twenty minutes therefore shows the right value, and a reloaded page picks the countdown up where the invigilator's watch says it is. "+5 minutes" simply moves the finish instant.
Timer or exam clock?
This timer shows a remaining time, the same for everyone. An exam room with candidates who have access arrangements needs more: the start time, the finish time of each group — standard time, 25 %, 50 % — and the notices on the wall. That is the job of the exam clock, which shares this page's engine and full-screen display.
And if the candidate list has to be prepared before the paper, the extra time calculator produces the name-by-name table, then opens the clock with the groups already filled in.
How the extended length is calculated
The length for a candidate with 25 % extra time is the paper length multiplied by five quarters, rounded to the nearest minute. Supervised breaks are added afterwards, without extra time.
extended length = round(length × 1.25)
Examples: 30 min → 38 min; 60 min → 75 min; 120 min → 150 min
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The remaining time is computed from the intended finish instant, not by counting seconds: a tab sent to the background or a reloaded page shows the right value when you come back. Only the alarm may be held back by the browser while the tab is not in the foreground.
Click the "45" chip: the length is written into the page address. Bookmark that address or add it to your home screen; when it opens, the timer is already set to 45 minutes.
Yes. By default the display changes colour five minutes before the end, then at one minute; both thresholds are set in minutes under the timer, and are remembered by the browser for next time.
There is one, but it is off by default: in an exam room, the invigilator calls time. Tick "Alarm at the end" before starting; the browser requires a click on the page before it allows a sound.
The timer shows a remaining time, the same for the whole room. The exam clock shows the time of day, the start time and one finish time per group of candidates — standard time, 25 %, 50 % — with the notices and a printable room sheet. Both share the same engine and the same full-screen display.
Related tools
- Exam ClockA full-screen clock, countdown and stopwatch for the exam room, with the finish time of every group on display.
- Extra time calculatorExtended duration and finish time for every candidate with access arrangements, with a printable list for invigilators.
- Random name pickerA wheel of names for calling on one participant, drawing an oral running order, assigning one topic per candidate, or building balanced groups — without the list leaving your browser.
And for an online exam?
Evalmee keeps each candidate's time, arrangements included, and hands the paper in automatically when it is up.