Make your Mac invincible

We’re always waiting for something. Sometimes, it could be as significant as a wedding or long-awaited vacation and, sometimes, as simple as a new music album release or just plain old Friday. Whatever it is, research tells us that actively anticipating something gives us almost the same amount of joy as the event itself. So why not use it to your advantage?

You can, of course, mark the day on your printed calendar or even the calendar you use on your Mac but, chances are, you’ll quickly forget about it until it’s just a week or a month away. The question is, how can you enjoy something that you can schedule several months or even a year in advance? You need a countdown clock app.

This app gives you the tools you need. If you need a basic timer, this is a good option. It's free, and while it doesn't offer much. Download Horo (Free, $2 for full version) Timer Apps for Mac. The 10 Mac timer apps we have covered are made for unique needs. As it happens, you cannot fulfill all your needs with a single app. For instance, hr, our pick for task management, would be less useful if you need to get reminders on time.

What Are Countdown Timer Apps?

Countdown timers are apps that allow you to specify any event in the future and then automatically create a countdown to date for it. These apps differ by the style of the date countdown — some include progress trackers, for example — and features like notifications. Sometimes, you can also specify the design to distinguish different events.

Another critical difference is between online countdown timers and native apps for Mac that usually let you create more custom countdowns for your needs. Let’s take a look at both.

Online countdown timers

There are numerous event countdown websites to be found online. Even most search engines (e.g. Google) have one as a feature. They are free and convenient to use since they don’t require you to install any software on your Mac beforehand.

At the same time, they usually only allow for one entry at a time and thus lack the functionality that would allow you to fill out your countdown calendar of upcoming events. Moreover, such online countdown timers are only active for as long as you have them open in your browser tab and would reset as soon as you close your browser window, whether by accident or not. So they are best used to something that’s coming up the same day.

To use a countdown clock app in Google, simply search for “timer” to call up the widget. Enter the exact amount of hours, minutes, and seconds, and click Start. You can even expand the timer to take over your screen by clicking the icon in the bottom-right corner. When the timer runs out, you’ll hear a sound.

If you want to use a dedicated online countdown timer instead of Google, try online-stopwatch.com. The idea is the same: you enter the hours, minutes, and seconds, then click Set, then Start. Since it’s a dedicated website, you get a nice feature of your timer being repeated live as your browser tab title, so you can watch the countdown timer app without it even being open.

For those who would like to add some beauty to their date countdown, there are options that feature animations or interesting graphics as well. One of these examples is timeanddate.com.

When you visit timeanddate.com/countdown/create, you can:

1. Choose a custom background for your countdown timer
2. Specify the title and its font style
3. Pick a destination date and time
4. Select whether the time should count down to the second or just days

How to countdown to date on Mac

While you can set timers of all lengths online, you only truly experience the beauty of anticipation when you can reliably look at upcoming events day to day, which means getting a countdown clock app for your Mac.

WaitingList is one of the most beautiful and intuitive countdown timers for Mac out there. It lives quietly in your menu bar and doesn’t get in the way, but at the same time remains easily accessible when you need to take a peek.

You can use WaitingList to create as many timers as you want, and the app would suggest a unique background and title for each one, and then count them down simultaneously. You get a real soothing effect just by looking at everything that’s about to happen.

To use WaitingList:

1. Click on its icon in the menu bar
2. Hit the plus icon
3. Choose your background from the dropdown menu first
4. Give your event countdown a title
5. Specify a target date
6. Copy-paste a URL if relevant
7. Press the check mark

How to create custom countdowns on Mac

Even though you can create date countdowns for pretty much any event inside WaitingList (it’s really great for that), some people would love to track even more meaningful dates in their lives. For example, how much time in percentage terms has passed since the beginning of the year or how old you are in days. To get more flexibility out of your countdown timer app, you should use Moment.

Moment is an all-in-one app for celebrating your life. Just like WaitingList, you can find it quietly tracking time in your menu bar, although you can specify for certain memorable events to have icons of their own. Moment clearly shows you how much time is left until a certain event, how much time has passed, and tracks event progress too.

Using Moment is just as simple as using WaitingList:

1. To start a new event, click the plus icon in the menu bar
2. Select from Date, Time Progress, or Life
3. Name your event
4. Input all the necessary dates
5. Attach a picture if you want
6. Hit the check mark when done

As you can see, there are quite a few ways you can anticipate something exciting, from simply setting the online countdown timer to getting a dedicated Mac app like WaitingList or Moment to track all sorts of time progressions.

Best of all, WaitingList and Moment are available to you absolutely free for seven days through a trial of Setapp, a platform with more than 200 best-in-class apps that will significantly expand the versatility of your Mac, from custom dynamic wallpapers (24 Hour Wallpaper) to blocking ads and trackers (AdGuard). Try them all today at no cost and find out where you’ve been missing out!

Timer App For Windows 10

Need to quickly start a countdown timer on your Mac?

Maybe you’re looking for the best free Pomodoro timer, a great minimalistcountdown clock, or a productivity time tracker.

Whenever I’m working, I’ve got a timer running. It’s my #1 tip for stayingfocused and getting a lot done in a short amount of time.

This is my round up of the best four free timer apps for your Mac.

1. Horo

Link: Horo

Obvious disclaimer – I built Horo. Why did I build it? I believe that if starting a timer takes you more than a second, your timer app sucks.

Horo is a simple, easy app that lets you type what time you want (“1m 30s”, “1.5h”), hit Return, and then your timer starts.

It’s neat, it’s free, and it shows the timer in the menu bar so you can glance back at it easily.

2. Be Focused

Link: Be Focused

Be Focused is a great, full-featured Pomodoro-style timer. To changethe time interval of an individual timer, you have to change the presetsin the app’s preferences.

This can be a bit annoying, but the benefit is that the app has awesome tracking of the number of times you’ve completed a timer. This, and the built-in break tracking, makes Be Focused a great work timer.

(Unfortunately, the free version has ads. But they’re not intrusive.)

3. Activity Timer

Link: Activity Timer

Activity Timer’s a great little app because you can save a range of custom preset timers.

If you find yourself using the same four or five time intervals over and over again,this is the app for you.

The app is simple, free, and works like you’d expect.

4. Howler Timer

Link: Howler Timer

Howler Timer is a great option if you want the timer to pop out into a new window.

Countdown Timer App Mac

The UI’s looking a little old, but the app itself works great. The Pro version ($2.99)gives you more formatting options for the timer in the menu bar, and you can set presets.

Free Pomodoro Timer App Mac

The other great feature of the Pro version is that you can loop your timers, which is pretty handy.

Free Countdown Timer App For Mac