What is a 10 minute timer?
A 10 minute timer is an online countdown that runs for exactly 10 minutes and alerts you when it reaches zero. This one is already set when the page opens: press Start or the space bar and it counts down from 10:00, keeps exact time if you switch tabs or lock your phone, and rings until you stop it.
What 10 minutes is good for
Ten minutes is the most searched timer length and the most versatile: a hard-boiled egg from boiling water, a quick tidy-up of one room, a 10-minute meditation, a presentation slot with questions, a reading sprint for a child, or the first block of a task you have been putting off (starting for ten minutes is easier than starting for an hour).
For a power nap, 10 to 20 minutes avoids deep sleep, so you wake without grogginess; set this timer, and if you want longer use the 20 minute timer rather than hitting snooze. The alarm ends on its own after a minute, so it will not keep ringing if you sleep through it on a desk.
Start it in one click
There is nothing to set: the time is loaded, the Start button has keyboard focus on a computer, and the alarm sound, volume and screen settings are remembered from your last visit. If you need a different length, type it into the hours, minutes and seconds boxes or pick another preset below the timer.
It keeps counting in a background tab
The end time is fixed the moment you press Start, so a slow or sleeping tab cannot make it late: whenever the page is drawn it recomputes the remaining time from the clock. The alarm is pre-scheduled on the browser's audio clock and backed by a system timer and a desktop notification, and if the device was asleep when the time came, the page rings as soon as you return and shows how long ago the 10 minutes ended. On iPhone keep the tab on screen, since Safari pauses hidden pages; Keep screen on, which is on by default on phones, prevents auto-lock while it runs.
Alarm, repeat and phone use
Choose Beep, Bell, Digital, Soft, Cuckoo, Chime, Pipe or None and set the volume; all but the cuckoo are generated in the browser and work offline, and the cuckoo is a short clip of about 65 KB fetched once and then kept by the browser. The alarm repeats until you press Stop alarm, Space or Esc, and gives up after 60 seconds. Android phones vibrate as well; iPhones on iOS 17 or later play it even with the silent switch on.
Need a slightly different time?
The 5 minute timer and the 15 minute timer are the nearest presets. For 12 minutes start this one and press +1 min twice; for 8 minutes press −1 min twice. Both work while it runs.
Other time tools
For measuring how long something takes, use the stopwatch, which counts up and records laps. For the days and hours until a date, use the countdown. For alternating focus and break periods, the Pomodoro timer runs the whole cycle, and the interval timer repeats work and rest rounds for training. They all share this timer's clock engine, sounds and settings.