Countdown widget for your Chrome new tab

Why a countdown on the new tab works

A countdown in an app has to be opened. This one does not. It turns up every time you reach for a distraction — which, let us be honest, is exactly when you need reminding.

People point it two ways and both work. At the thing they dread: finals, the thesis, the release. Or at the thing they want: the trip, the birthday, the last day of term. Same widget, opposite feelings.

Choosing what to display

Seconds on a six-month countdown are noise. Hours hidden on a same-day deadline are useless. So all eight units — years down to milliseconds — are separate switches, and you keep only the ones that tell you something.

Drop the rest and the widget shrinks to fit. No empty zeroes hogging the page.

Repeating countdowns

One-off dates expire. Stand-ups, gym days and monthly invoices do not. Switch on repeat and the countdown rolls to the next occurrence instead of sitting at zero looking sorry for itself.

Monthly and yearly are free. Daily, weekly and fortnightly are PRO — those are the ones that turn a date tracker into a standing reminder.

Holidays and working days

Skip the date picker and tap a holiday instead — Halloween, Diwali, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas. The widget finds the next one and does it again next year. Set once, forget forever.

Then there is the working-days switch. Turn it on and weekends stop counting. A deadline three weeks out loses six days, which is unpleasant and almost always the number you actually needed.

Styling it into the page

Font, size, colour, background, shadow, corners — the usual panel. Transparent background puts the digits straight onto your wallpaper; a translucent one makes a card. Lobster over a photo is where half the gallery has landed, and it is hard to argue with.

Position is stored relative to the page, so plugging in a second monitor does not scatter your layout.

Countdown settings

• Target date and time — Any point in the future, picked from a calendar with a time field.
• Visible units — Years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds — each independently on or off.
• Repeat — Monthly and yearly are free; daily, weekly and every two weeks are PRO.
• Holiday preset — Halloween, Diwali, Thanksgiving, Black Friday or Christmas — the date is worked out for you, every year.
• Working days only — Skip weekends so the number is the days you can actually work in.
• Layout — Units in a row or stacked in a column.
• Target date on the widget — Show the date itself under the digits, or hide it for a cleaner look.
• Typography and colour — Font, size, colour, background fill, text shadow, corner radius.
• Size and position — Drag to move, drag the corner to resize; both stored relative to the page.

What people use it for

• Exam and finals countdown — the single most common use in our theme gallery.
• Thesis, coursework or application deadline.
• Product or feature release date for a team dashboard.
• Wedding, birthday, holiday or trip.
• Christmas, New Year, Halloween and Thanksgiving countdowns.
• Sobriety, no-sugar or no-scroll streaks, paired with the habit tracker.