Our free Pomodoro timer combines flexible focus and break cycles, calm progress, tested sound, fullscreen controls and honest local records.
Our timer gives the next small piece of work a clear beginning and an intentional end. Start with one realistic task, give it a block of attention, then leave room to rest and decide what comes next. You do not need an account or an installation.
Name a task you can actually begin: outline three paragraphs, review ten questions, or fix one failing test. Choose Classic 25/5, Deep work 50/10, Sprint 15/3 or your own durations. The third number in each preset is the long break, not another focus block.
Choose and test the completion sound in Settings before you need it, then press Start. The large countdown and filling circle show the remaining time without a second progress bar. Use fullscreen when a simpler view helps. Pause for a genuine interruption; reset or skip when abandoning the block. None of those actions pretends that unfinished work was completed.
When the block ends, the popup names the next phase. Start it yourself, or separately enable automatic breaks and automatic focus. Review completed blocks below the timer and download a CSV if useful. Before the next focus block, ask what changed: did you finish the task, uncover a problem, or learn that it needs another block?
Try 25 minutes of active recall, a five-minute break, then 25 minutes checking the questions you missed. Keep the task small enough to describe. Four classic focus blocks contain 100 focus minutes; three short breaks add 15 minutes before the long break. That is a plan for the time, not a guarantee that you will remember everything.
A 15-minute sprint can make a blank page less intimidating. Use the first block for a rough outline and the second for a draft. Give editing its own block so research, writing and polishing do not compete for attention. If you reach a natural stopping point early, stop deliberately; the timer is there to support your work, not punish you.
Choose 50/10 when repeatedly reloading context would be costly. Name a testable outcome, such as reproducing a bug or reviewing one module. Before the break, leave a short note about the next step so returning is easier. This longer rhythm is our flexible preset, not a claim that the original Pomodoro method requires 50-minute sessions.
Use a short block for a defined batch of email, invoices or household paperwork, then step away. Group similar work instead of reacting to every new message. For a class or shared work session, share the durations without your task name; everyone starts their own timer, so the link is not a live synchronized room.
Classic uses 25/5/15 minutes with a long break after four completed focus blocks. Deep work uses 50/10/25 after three; Sprint uses 15/3/10 after four. Custom intervals accept 1–120 minutes and a long break every 2–8 blocks. Changing a partly used block asks before resetting it. Choose the rhythm for the task, not for an impressive number.
The circle fills smoothly while the timer runs and stops when paused; there is no second progress bar competing for space. Motion can be switched off, and your device’s reduced-motion preference takes priority. We keep the motion subtle so the time stays easy to read. Fullscreen retains Start, Pause, Reset and the phase controls.
Optional soft filtered noise plays during focus only and stops on Pause or a break. In Settings, choose one of the Alarm Clock’s 13 completion sounds: Soft bell, Gentle, Chime, Melody, a simple Beep or a more noticeable alert. Soft bell remains the default. Set the alert volume and use Test sound to hear the selected tone before applying it. The choice is saved in this browser and changing it does not reset the countdown. The on/off switch is independent of the background noise. Browser and device audio restrictions still apply, so test your intended headphones or speakers.
Automatic breaks and automatic focus are separate choices, both off by default. A completed block shows a popup with the next phase and its actual state. If the page was hidden or the browser woke long after the deadline, we prepare the next phase without silently counting a chain of unattended blocks. Notification permission is separate from sound and never required to use the timer.
Only a focus block that reaches zero enters the completed record. Skips, resets and unfinished blocks do not inflate it. Today follows your device’s local date, and the latest 200 completed blocks can be exported as CSV. These are completed timer minutes, not proof of attention or productivity. Settings and records stay in this browser; clearing its storage removes them.
Share setup creates a language-aware link to the chosen durations. The task name is excluded unless you explicitly include it. A shared link never starts the visitor’s timer by itself and does not include records. If you choose to include a task, treat that URL as public: anyone with the link can read the words in it.
| Your rhythm | Focus | Short break | Long break | Focus blocks before a long break |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classic | 25 min | 5 min | 15 min | 4 |
| Deep work | 50 min | 10 min | 25 min | 3 |
| Sprint | 15 min | 3 min | 10 min | 4 |
Francesco Cirillo developed the Pomodoro Technique while studying in the 1980s. Its name comes from the tomato-shaped kitchen timer he used: pomodoro means tomato in Italian. A physical timer made a short commitment visible and gave it a definite end. That origin explains the appeal, but the technique is broader than a countdown. Cirillo describes a system for planning work, handling interruptions and estimating effort. Our browser timer supplies the timing part; you still choose the work and decide what to do with what you learn.
The familiar 25-minute focus period and five-minute break are a starting structure, not the whole idea. Before beginning, make the task concrete enough to estimate. Afterward, compare the estimate with what happened. If a task took three blocks instead of one, the useful discovery may be that research, drafting and checking are separate jobs. A record becomes meaningful when it changes tomorrow’s plan, not when it simply grows. We offer longer and shorter rhythms so the tool can fit different tasks, while clearly distinguishing those presets from the original method.
An interruption pulls you away from the chosen task; a break is a planned decision to stop. For an intrusive thought, jot down a few words and return to the block if possible. For something genuinely urgent, pause or abandon it without turning the record into a fiction. During a break, choose an activity that feels different from the work: stand up, look away from the screen, or get water. There is no universal ideal interval, and no timer can promise better grades or cure attention difficulties. Adapt the routine when your body, job or circumstances need something else.
We calculate remaining time from a target timestamp instead of subtracting one second for every browser callback. Pause preserves the remaining duration; resume creates a new deadline. A focus block is recorded once when that deadline is reached, and Today uses the device’s local calendar date. We test throttled callbacks, pause/resume, skip, long-break boundaries, corrupt saved data and local-day changes. We cannot verify whether you actually worked during a block; the record describes the timer, not your attention.
A browser tab is not a background alarm service. Closing the page, sleeping the device, muting audio or denying notifications can prevent an on-time alert. On returning, the countdown reconciles with its deadline, but it cannot send an alert back in time. Changes to the device clock can affect that deadline. Reloading keeps saved settings and completed records, not an active countdown. Keep the tab open and test alerts before relying on them.
No. Only a focus block that reaches zero is recorded. Skipping does not advance the completed-block cycle.
No. Keep the page open. Sleep, muted audio and browser restrictions can also delay or prevent alerts; test sound before relying on it.
Yes. Use Deep work, Sprint or Custom. These flexible timer presets are alternatives to the traditional rhythm, not official requirements of the original technique.
Settings and completed records are stored locally in this browser, not synced between devices. Tasks are excluded from share links by default. Download records before clearing browser storage.
Yes. Both have independent switches. Reduced-motion preferences disable animation. The background sound is off by default and separate from the completion chime.
Yes. Our timer works without an account or installation. You can use presets, custom intervals, fullscreen and CSV downloads without signing in.
If something is wrong, tell us the selected rhythm, phase, browser and device, whether the tab was hidden, and the expected versus observed time or count. A screenshot helps, but remove private task names first. We reproduce the issue, correct the timer or explanation, and record material changes in What’s New.
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