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Date & Time Calculators

Date and time calculators answer questions that are awkward to do in your head because months vary in length and leap years get in the way. They come up in project planning, visa and contract paperwork, event organising and anything involving colleagues in other countries. The Date Difference Calculator counts the interval between two dates in days, weeks and months, which is what notice periods, residency applications and rental agreements usually ask for. The Age Calculator is the same arithmetic aimed at birthdays, giving an exact age in years, months and days as of today or any date you choose, and it is the quicker option when you just have a date of birth. The Time Zone Converter maps a moment in one place to the local time somewhere else, including the daylight saving shifts that make calls land an hour out twice a year. Use it before you send an invitation rather than after. The Countdown Timer tracks the remaining time to a fixed point such as a launch, an exam or a flight, and keeps running on screen while you work. All four run in the browser with no sign-up, and no dates you enter are stored anywhere.

4 tools available

Showing 1–4 of 4

Two ways of measuring the same countdown

Duration mode converts your four inputs into a single number of seconds, adding days multiplied by 86400, hours multiplied by 3600, minutes multiplied by 60, and the seconds themselves. That total becomes the starting value and also the denominator for the progress bar.

Target mode works the opposite way round. It takes the date and time you selected, compares it with your device's current clock, and derives the remaining seconds from the difference. Because the target is a fixed point, the remaining time is recomputed against the clock rather than simply decremented, which keeps a long countdown accurate even if the tab is inactive for a while.

The display then converts the remaining seconds back into days, hours, minutes and seconds for reading. Elapsed time is the total minus the remaining time, and the progress bar shows elapsed divided by total as a percentage. Pausing stops the countdown and holds the remaining value until you resume.

A 45 minute timer partway through

Set duration mode to 0 days, 0 hours, 45 minutes and 0 seconds, and label it Revision block. The total converts to 45 multiplied by 60, or 2700 seconds.

Eighteen minutes in, the elapsed time is 18 multiplied by 60, which is 1080 seconds. The remaining time is 2700 minus 1080, which is 1620 seconds, displayed as 27 minutes and 0 seconds. The progress bar reads 1080 divided by 2700, which is 0.4, so 40 per cent complete.

Now take target mode instead. Suppose today is 21 September and you set a target of 1 October at 09:00, with the current time 14:30 on 21 September. From 14:30 on 21 September to 14:30 on 30 September is 9 days. From there to 09:00 on 1 October is another 18 hours and 30 minutes. The countdown therefore reads 9 days, 18 hours, 30 minutes, which is 9 multiplied by 86400 plus 18 multiplied by 3600 plus 30 multiplied by 60, or 844200 seconds.

Keeping the countdown reliable and reading it correctly

The timer runs inside the browser page, so the tab must stay open for it to keep counting on screen. Mobile browsers in particular suspend or throttle background tabs to save power, which can delay the alert on a phone with the screen locked. For anything you must not miss, such as food in the oven, set a phone alarm as a backup.

Target mode reads the time from your device's own clock and timezone. A countdown to a deadline expressed in another timezone will be wrong unless you convert the target time yourself first, which catches people out with submission deadlines quoted in UTC or in a different country.

The alert sound needs your device volume up and the browser not muted, and some browsers block audio until you have interacted with the page, which starting the timer satisfies. Finally, the progress bar reflects the proportion of the countdown that has elapsed, not progress through whatever task you are doing, so treat it as a clock rather than a measure of how much work is left.

Frequently Asked Questions

Duration mode counts down a length of time you enter in days, hours, minutes and seconds, starting from the moment you press start. Target mode counts down to a fixed date and time you choose, so the remaining figure is the gap between now and that point on your device's clock.
The countdown continues while the page stays open, and target mode recalculates against the clock so it stays accurate. Mobile browsers may throttle background tabs to save battery, which can delay the on-screen update and the alert. Keep the tab visible, or set a device alarm as a backup for anything critical.
Yes, there is a label field so you can record what the countdown is for. It is worth using whenever you leave the tab open for a long stretch or run a timer alongside other work, since a countdown showing 27 minutes tells you nothing by itself about which task it belongs to.
Your device's own clock and timezone setting. The timer does not convert between zones, so a deadline published as 23:59 UTC needs converting to your local time before you enter it. Getting this wrong is a common cause of a countdown that finishes an hour or more away from the real deadline.
Check that the alert sound option is enabled, that your device volume is up and that the browser tab is not muted. Some browsers also block audio until you have interacted with the page, although pressing start normally satisfies that. A suspended background tab on a phone can also delay the sound.