A free online time tool is a page that answers one time question in the browser you already have open. The question might be “what time is it?”, “how much of this block is left?”, “how long did that take?”, “ring at 3:40”, or “what time is that in the other city?”. Clockbeam splits those questions onto separate pages so the buttons match the job. This guide is the map. It links every tool on the site and the longer guides that sit next to them.
Nothing here requires an account. The clock follows the clock in your device, or a time zone you pick. Clockbeam does not sync to an atomic time server. If the computer is wrong, the page is wrong by the same amount. Saved setups stay in this browser. Clearing site data removes them. A shared link changes what the next person sees only after they choose to use that setup, and it is not a remote control of your screen.
Start from the sentence you need to keep
Pick the page from the sentence, not from whichever tab you used last time.
| The sentence | Open |
|---|---|
| What time is it on this device? | Online clock, or the analog or flip face |
| The room needs to see the time of day | Fullscreen clock |
| Stop when this many minutes are up | Timer, or a 1, 5, 10, 15, or 30 minute page |
| Work, then break, then work again | Pomodoro timer |
| How long did that take? | Stopwatch |
| Ring at a clock time in a zone | Alarm |
| What time is it in these cities right now? | World clock |
| When do our working hours overlap? | Meeting planner |
| Put a clock or countdown on another website | Website widgets and the widget builder |
| Put a clock or countdown in a livestream | OBS clock, OBS countdown, or starting soon |
The tools index lists the same pages in groups. The rest of this guide says what each one does, what it refuses to do, and which longer guide to read when one page needs more than a paragraph.
Name the anchor before you pick a tab. A clock is the time of day. A timer is a duration from Start. An alarm is a future clock time. A stopwatch is elapsed time, and it ends when you stop it. A world clock is several clocks for the current moment. A meeting planner is one future minute in several cities. A widget or an overlay is one of those tools in another frame.
A clock for the time of day
The online clock shows the time as soon as the page loads. It reads your device. Customize changes size, colors, seconds, the date, and the time zone. The label under the clock names the zone and the current offset. Restore defaults puts the original display back. Display settings and named setups stay in this browser. Export JSON if you want a copy.
Fullscreen fills the screen when the browser allows it. If the browser blocks it, the clock expands on the page. Press Escape or Exit to leave. Keep screen on asks for a wake lock. If the browser cannot hold one, the button says so. A sleeping display or a closed laptop will not keep the clock updating. Clockbeam cannot force a projector or a locked-down browser to allow fullscreen.
The fullscreen clock is that same clock, laid out for a classroom or a second screen. It is not a bell schedule. Seconds, colors, and the zone still come from Customize. The classroom guide covers a projector setup, including a blocked fullscreen request or a wake lock the browser will not hold.
The analog clock puts the same time on a face. The blue hand is the second hand, and turning off Show seconds hides it. The flip clock is the same time as a flip display. Reduced motion swaps the digit immediately instead of animating it. Neither face is a separate clock.
“Be back at 2:40” is a clock. “You have twelve minutes from now” is a timer. A large clock does not spend a duration, and a countdown does not answer someone who asked for the time of day.
A countdown when the length is already chosen
The online timer counts down from hours, minutes, and seconds you set, or from a preset. It stays idle until you press Start, so opening the page early does not spend the budget.
Pause keeps the remaining time, including across a refresh. A running timer stores its deadline. Coming back shows the time left, or Finished if the deadline passed. A late reload does not play a sound for an ending that already happened. The chime plays only while this tab is open and the device is awake. There is no background timer.
If the device clock jumps during a running countdown, Clockbeam keeps the remaining interval and shows a note. Share setup sends the duration and the sound, not a live remote control. The label is included only if you turn that on. Named setups stay in this browser. Customize can export and delete them.
Five preset pages open with a duration already filled in, and they still wait for Start. The 1 minute timer is a one minute start. The 5 minute timer is a short break. The 10 minute timer is a short talk or a warmup. The 15 minute timer is a reading block or a short meeting. The 30 minute timer is one half hour, not a focus session that continues into a break. You can change the fields before Start. They are disabled while the countdown is running. Refreshing a preset page returns it to that preset. Opening one does not replace a timer already started on the main timer page.
Fullscreen centers the remaining time. There is no warning color and no overtime clock after zero. A label such as “Section 2” stays with the countdown and does not change the math. Use the main timer when the length is not one of those five presets.
The exam guide is about matching a countdown to a length an exam board prints, and about what a browser timer cannot be on test day. The presentation guide pairs a stopwatch rehearsal with a countdown for the slot you were given. The time-blocking guide is about writing the blocks first. Clockbeam keeps the countdown. Your list or calendar keeps the plan.
A Pomodoro when the block should break itself
The Pomodoro timer is a countdown that knows the next block. It opens on a 25 minute focus block and waits until you press Start. The default short break is 5 minutes and the default long break is 15. A long break follows four focus sessions unless you change that number. Before a block is running, each length can be set from 1 to 90 minutes, and the round can be 2 to 8 focus sessions. Those fields lock while a block is running.
Pause keeps the remaining time. Reset returns to a fresh focus block and clears the session count. When a block ends, press the next step, or turn on Continues on its own before you start. Automatic continuation starts the next block once. It does not skip through several missed sessions if you were away. The chime plays only while this tab is open. A sleeping device or a closed tab can miss it.
The page is not a task list. The Pomodoro guide covers the round in more detail. A single block with no next step belongs on the timer. A measurement, with no plan to stop at a set minute, belongs on the stopwatch.
The widget builder can place a Pomodoro on another website. The presets there are Classic 25/5, Deep work 50/10, and Short focus 15/5. Each visitor gets a fresh timer. Closing the browser does not keep it running.
A stopwatch when you are measuring
The online stopwatch counts up from the moment you press Start. Use it when the length is the answer. How long did the rehearsal take? How long was each lap of a drill? You are not asking the room to stop at a budget you already chose. You are learning the number.
Lap records two columns. Split is the time since the previous lap, or since the start for the first lap. Total is the elapsed time at the moment you pressed Lap. Export CSV downloads those two columns. Clear laps asks before deleting them. Reset with recorded laps also asks before it clears the time and the list. The questions are there because a list of splits is easy to destroy.
While the tab is visible, elapsed time uses a monotonic clock. Time away from the tab is included when you come back. Pause is what stops the count. Switching tabs does not freeze it.
This is not a lab-certified measurement, and it does not sync to an atomic time service. If the device clock jumps backward across a reload, the stopwatch shows a recovery note instead of a negative time. Fullscreen centers the elapsed time. There is no finish chime.
The stopwatch-versus-timer guide settles the choice with examples. A known length is a timer. A length you are trying to learn is a stopwatch. The presentation guide uses both: the stopwatch in rehearsal, the timer for the slot on the day.
An alarm for a clock time
The alarm waits for a time of day in a time zone. It starts as this device zone. Choose the time, read the next real occurrence, including the date, test the sound, and then arm it. Arming does not start until you press the button. Snooze moves the alarm five minutes ahead. Dismiss clears it. Fullscreen puts the alarm time in the center of the screen.
Daylight saving can skip a minute or repeat one. If the minute does not exist, use the corrected time. If the minute happens twice, choose earlier or later. Changing the zone while an alarm is armed asks you to confirm, because the target instant does not silently move.
There is no background alarm and no lock-screen alert. The tab has to stay open on an awake device. A missed alarm is marked expired when you return. It does not play after the fact. Use a phone when you need a guaranteed wake-up. The alarm guide is the longer version of those limits.
“In 25 minutes” is a timer or a Pomodoro. “At 3:40 p.m. in this zone” is an alarm. The alarm does not count down a length you type. It waits for a clock time.
Several cities at once
The world clock lists your device time, then any cities you add. Search for a city. Each row shows the local time, the date, and the current UTC offset. The date matters because a city can already be on tomorrow while you are still on today. The offset is calculated for the current moment in that IANA time zone, using the time zone database in your browser. Clockbeam does not keep a separate city offset table. When daylight saving starts or ends, the offset on the row moves.
You can keep up to eight added cities. The device row is always shown and is not one of the eight. The list stays in this browser. There is no page for every city. Search stays on this page.
The world clock is the current moment. It does not hold a meeting on a future date, and it does not know office hours. The world clock guide covers UTC, offsets, and daylight saving, including why a gap you memorized in winter can be wrong in summer.
The meeting planner is the future-minute tool. Add two, three, or four cities. The first city is the one whose clock you set. Working hours default to 9:00–17:00 in each city, and you can change them. The shared band is where those local windows overlap. The time field converts one minute into every selected city. Copy meeting link restores the cities, working hours, date, and time. It does not create a calendar event or join a call.
Working hours stay inside one local day. If a chosen minute falls in a daylight-saving gap, the planner shows the next valid minute. If the minute happens twice, it shows the earlier one. The meeting guide is the longer walkthrough. Use the world clock for “what time is it there?” and the planner for “what time should we meet?”. A timer can run the call once people are in the room.
A clock on another website
Website widgets are a clock, countdown, world clock, or Pomodoro for another site. Copy the iframe under a preview, or open the widget builder to change colors, size, cities, or the countdown length. Your saved setups stay in this browser. The visitor does not inherit them.
The website clock uses the visitor’s time zone unless the embed URL names a time zone. A world-clock embed shows two to six cities, with each city’s local time, date, and current offset. It does not use the city list saved on the world clock page. Each visitor starts their own countdown or Pomodoro when they press Start. This is not a shared live countdown and not a remote control of someone else’s screen.
A host page that blocks iframes shows an empty box. The widget cannot be pasted as loose HTML. The small Clockbeam link is on by default and uses rel="nofollow". Turn attribution off in the builder, then copy the iframe again, to remove it. A countdown sound needs the visitor’s tab to stay open. The widget does not run in the background.
A widget and an OBS browser source can both show a clock. They are copied from different places. Do not point a stream at the widget iframe, and do not paste an overlay URL into a blog post and expect the site chrome of a normal page. The homepage is a website, with a header and a footer. The overlay URLs are drawn for a source.
A clock inside a livestream
Overlay Studio builds a browser source. Leave the type on Clock, or start from the OBS clock page. Pick a preset. Minimal Broadcast is transparent, so the scene behind the source stays visible. Set 12-hour or 24-hour time, seconds, the date, and a time zone if the stream should not follow the computer. Copy the browser source URL. In OBS, add a Browser Source, paste the URL, and set the size to 1920 by 1080. The type scales with the frame. Leave the browser source custom CSS empty so a transparent clock can show through.
The overlay follows the clock in the computer running OBS. It does not sync to another device. The overlay page has no site header and does not load analytics. It does not play sound.
The OBS countdown is a duration or an event time. Anchor to now writes the end into the URL, so a reload of that URL keeps the end. An event time keeps its end for the same reason: the end is an absolute moment. A duration without an anchor is remembered only in that browser source, on that computer. If OBS discards that storage, Start on load begins a new duration.
Pause and Reset appear only if you turn on Show pause and reset. In OBS, right-click the source and choose Interact. Clicks on the program output do not reach the page. An anchored duration cannot be paused, because its end is fixed in the URL. There is no shared remote control and no sound.
Starting soon is that countdown with a heading and an optional second line. The heading defaults to Starting soon. The text is plain, and markup is removed. At zero it stays on Done until you change the length or the event time. The card does not place video, chat, or other scenes. Reload behavior matches the countdown overlay.
What every page shares
Every tool on Clockbeam is free, and none of them asks for an account. The about page says that briefly. The terms say not to treat the clock as a certified time source. The privacy page describes what stays in this browser. The accessibility page covers the keyboard, contrast, reduced motion, and the browser limits on fullscreen, wake lock, and sound.
The time comes from the device, or from a zone applied to that device clock. Clockbeam does not sync to an atomic time server. Sound, on the timer, the Pomodoro, and the alarm, needs an open tab on an awake device. Overlays do not chime. A preset timer page returns to its preset on refresh. The main timer resumes from a saved deadline. An anchored OBS duration keeps the end written in the URL.
Named setups, display settings, Pomodoro lengths, and the world-clock list live in this browser. Export JSON from Customize if you want a copy. Fullscreen and wake lock depend on the browser. When they are blocked, the time still expands on the page.
None of these pages is a calendar, a video call, a proctor, or a lab instrument. Use the page for the sentence it answers.
Where to read next
The guides below stay with one job each.
- How to use a Pomodoro timer for a 25 minute focus block and the breaks that follow.
- Time blocking with a countdown timer for writing the blocks first and running each one on a timer.
- Countdown timers for exams for practicing a section at the length the board prints.
- World clock and time zone basics for UTC, offsets, daylight saving, and the city list.
- Plan a meeting across time zones for working-hour overlap in two to four cities.
- Stopwatch vs timer for counting up when you are measuring and counting down when the end is chosen.
- Stay on time in a presentation for a stopwatch rehearsal and a countdown on the day.
- Online alarm clock tips for arming an alarm in the browser and knowing when it will not ring.
- Fullscreen clock for a classroom for a projector or a second screen.
- OBS clock and countdown overlay for a browser-source clock, countdown, and starting-soon card.
- 24 hour time clock chart for 00:00 through 23:59.
- NASA countdown clock for a shared countdown that is not a NASA launch clock.
- Clock tab with seconds for the page clock and the fixed browser tab title.
- Clock display styles for minimal, flip, analog, and scenic.
- Shutdown clock for a visible activity countdown, and for the system commands that actually power a computer off.
- Digital stop clock for start, lap, pause, and reset on the stopwatch.
- Use one minute to start a focused task.
- Decimal hours after you subtract an unpaid break.
- NIST vs a browser clock for the reference you need.
The tools index is the short list. This guide is the long one.
