Countdown Timer
Count down to any date and time — or pick a milestone and we will work out when it next falls.
Counting days is harder than it looks
“How many days until” sounds like subtraction, and mostly it is. The awkward parts are the ones that only show up occasionally — and always at the worst moment, when the number on your foyer screen is wrong by one.
Leap years. Multiplying out an approximate year length drifts. Working on real dates does not, so a countdown set three years ahead still lands on the right day. That matters more than it sounds: a countdown that is a day out is worse than no countdown, because people trust it.
Daylight saving. A clock going forward makes one day twenty-three hours long. Counting in local time rather than fixed offsets means a countdown crossing a clock change still reaches zero at the right moment rather than an hour out.
Time zones. Everything is shown in the time zone of the device looking at it. A colleague two hours ahead sees the correct remaining time, not yours relabelled. That is usually what people want from a shared countdown, and it is why the target travels in the link rather than a pre-computed number of days.
Moving dates. Most milestones sit on a fixed day, but Easter does not — it follows an algorithm called the Computus, tied to the moon rather than the calendar, which is why it wanders between late March and late April. Calculating it rather than keeping a lookup table means every future year is correct without anyone maintaining anything.
One deliberate omission: there is no account and nothing is stored. Everything you choose lives in the page address, so sharing the link shares the countdown, and closing the tab loses nothing you cannot get back by opening the link again.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, for the milestones. Christmas, Easter and New Year always resolve to the next occurrence, so a link you share in January still counts down to this December rather than showing a date that has passed.
It is calculated, not looked up in a table. Easter follows an algorithm known as the Computus, which is why it moves between late March and late April each year. That means the tool is correct for any year you point it at, not just the ones someone remembered to add.
Yes. Everything you set is stored in the page address, so copying the link is all it takes. There is no account and nothing saved on our side — the link is the save file.
Yes. The full screen button gives you just the numbers, which works well on a foyer display or a projector. It keeps counting as long as the page is open.
Yours. Dates and times are interpreted in the time zone of the device showing the page, so a countdown shared across a team shows each person the correct remaining time rather than a fixed clock.
It says so plainly rather than counting into negative numbers or resetting. For the recurring milestones this never happens, because they roll forward to the next occurrence automatically.
No practical limit. Set a date years out and it will count the days correctly, including leap years, because the arithmetic is done on real dates rather than by multiplying out an approximation.
Only to load the page. Once it is open the countdown runs entirely in your browser, so it keeps working if the connection drops mid-event.
The Zeal Promise
Non-negotiable, on every tool we ship.
- No sign-up — ever
- No watermarks on any output
- No ads near the download button
- Works fully on mobile
- Privacy-first: processing stays in your browser
- Open source (MIT) — audit it, contribute, self-host
- Zero runtime dependencies in tool logic