PowerPoint Countdown Timer

Organising a conference, event, or running training? Delegates always wandering off, and returning late? Too much uncertainty about when the next session should start?

This PowerPoint countdown timer can be displayed on screen at your event, making it absolutely clear to everybody when the next session should start. Build anticipation, ensure the room is settled on time, and keep things running smoothly. Prefer a more modern look? Check out our Digital PowerPoint Timer.

The PowerPoint countdown timer is twenty minutes long, with one minute per slide.

This clock timer is produced in PowerPoint – please download the file for your own use. It can be placed onto your own template or background. Choose how much time to run the countdown for by starting on the appropriate slide.

Download PowerPoint Countdown Timer

All our PowerPoint slides are free. If you use one, please say thanks by sharing via Google+1, Twitter, or Facebook. Thank you!

85 Comments to PowerPoint Countdown Timer

#1

לימודים

9:08 am, February 7th, 2010

Very nice!!
#2

Joby Blume

5:37 pm, February 8th, 2010

Thanks for the kind words Limudim, glad you liked it.
#3

LB

5:56 am, March 22nd, 2010

Thank you…this is awesome…It will certainly come in handy
#4

Ryan Patton

7:45 pm, April 30th, 2010

This is very nice but do you know if there is something similar to this but that can count down days as well? Similar to like a countdown til christmas.
#5

Jessica Pyne

7:58 pm, April 30th, 2010

Ryan, we don’t have a day countdown timer as this would be a little impractical in PowerPoint – it would involve having to leave the file running in slideshow mode over the entire period of time being counted down. If there is a variation on this timer that you would like us to create, please let us know!
#6

Ben Greenfield

8:25 pm, May 26th, 2010

how can the time countdown be changed from 20 minutes to, for example, 5 minutes?
#7

Jessica Pyne

9:40 pm, May 26th, 2010

Ben, to start the timer from five minutes, simply start it at the appropriate slide (which I believe is slide 17). A quick way to start the presentation from a particular slide is to press Shift+F5 when you have that slide selected. You can even delete the previous slides if you don’t want to use them. Hope this helps!
#8

Keith A

9:11 pm, June 7th, 2010

These are great countdown timers…is there a way to reduce the size and include on an ongoing powerpoint presentation, like in the corner?
#9

Jessica Pyne

3:42 pm, June 9th, 2010

Thanks for the comment, Keith. I’m afraid this would be more or less impossible to do, as you cannot use a separate PowerPoint file while this one is showing.

It would be possible to create slides themselves with the countdown in the corner, with different animations going on in the foreground on the same slide. However, for the countdown to work correctly the slide timings would have to be kept the same, meaning that each slide, no matter what was on it, would have to progress at the rate of one minute (no clicks involved). So it is not really a practical solution, I’m afraid!
#10

jones

12:28 pm, October 18th, 2010

please, teach me how you created this wonderful app
#11

Joby Blume

9:38 am, October 20th, 2010

Well the best way to get a sense of it would be to download the PowerPoint timer file and look at the animation. This is pretty advanced stuff – but if you want to learn how to make great slides, check out our PowerPoint Training section – it’s full of free videos.
#12

jed

9:10 pm, October 25th, 2010

It would be nice if this could be made to be half of a 2 column silde so I could have the discussion question up while the timer is counting down.
#13

Jessica Pyne

11:43 am, October 27th, 2010

That’s certainly an interesting idea, Jed! I’ve passed it on to the design team, and will email you to let you know how it pans out. If it works, we’ll make it available to download. Thanks for getting in touch!
#14

Jaynee

4:29 pm, November 8th, 2010

This is PERFECT! I needed something like this for a presentation at my office, and this completely fits the bill! Thanks so much!
#15

Jessica Pyne

12:15 pm, November 9th, 2010

You’re welcome, Jaynee – we’re glad you find it useful! I hope your presentation goes well, and please check back often for new content – we update regularly, and welcome suggestions!
#16

Remco

12:04 pm, November 20th, 2010

My compliments, what a nice countdown timer…….was in need of it!
#17

Jessica Pyne

1:36 am, November 26th, 2010

Thanks for the kind words, Remco – we’re glad you found it useful!
#18

Chris

2:28 pm, November 30th, 2010

Thanks for the brilliant timer. Would it be possible to increase the time? Say to 25 or even 30 mins?
#19

Jessica Pyne

4:04 pm, December 1st, 2010

You’re welcome, Chris – we’re glad you like it. It is certainly possible to increase the time, but this would involve adding extra slides. We have plans to redevelop the timer in the near future, so I’ll pass this request on to our design team. They’re currently extremely busy, but I’ll let you know when the changes have been made!
#20

Nadejda

10:12 pm, December 20th, 2010

Don’t look bad at all… but how about to get it on the website… is it possible …? and have to a countdown from 72 hours and down…?
#21

Jessica Pyne

1:11 pm, December 21st, 2010

Hi Nadejda – The PowerPoint Countdown Timer doesn’t work like website countdown timers. It could be uploaded onto a website if it were converted to video using technology such as iSpring – but it wouldn’t exceed the 20 minutes.
#22

Tuan

6:40 am, December 29th, 2010

Great countdown! But would you know why when I try to insert a song, the countdown will stop when it hits the next one minute time? Then the song starts over again but the timer freezes.
#23

Jessica Pyne

4:37 pm, December 29th, 2010

Tuan – It sounds like you may be adding the music as a sound effect, which can interfere with the animation. I’ve passed your query on to our design team, who should be able to identify the problem. I’ll be back in touch with their answer!
#24

Jessica Pyne

2:11 pm, January 4th, 2011

Tuan, I’ve had a response from our design team, which I’ll email to you now. I hope that it solves your problem!

For any other visitors have been experiencing the same problem, we will shortly be posting it on the site, so that it’s available for everyone.
#25

Limbocat

6:25 pm, January 10th, 2011

Wonderful! What a lifesaver!!! Thank you!!!!!!
#26

Jessica Pyne

6:02 pm, January 11th, 2011

You’re welcome, Limbocat – enjoy!
#27

Sheilina

2:04 am, January 17th, 2011

Hi, Would like to ask how do i make a day counter instead of in hours, minutes and seconds? Thanks!
#28

Jessica Pyne

9:28 am, January 17th, 2011

Sheilina – In order to make the counter last for days rather than minutes, all of the animation lengths would have to be changed, and you’d have to keep the PowerPoint running for days. It is possible, but it would be very impractical – PowerPoint is not the best platform for timers that are due to last this long! If you are looking for a timer that will, I suggest that you search for ones designed for websites. Hope you find what you’re looking for!
#29

Joe

10:26 am, January 17th, 2011

Love the look and the ease of use. Ran into a bit of a problem at slide 16 when the clock jumps ahead ten minutes to sixteen instead of six. It is fine again once you get to slide 17. For a quick fix, I was able to pull that series out and put in another zero, but I do get a little jump on the digit there and at the transition to the next slide. Please let me know if you post a revised version as your work is otherwise perfect!
Cheers!
#30

Jessica Pyne

4:38 pm, January 19th, 2011

Hi Joe – thanks for pointing out the error! We’ve fixed that now, and the corrected file is now available to download from the existing links. Thanks for getting in touch!
#31

Wes du Toit

9:28 am, February 21st, 2011

Great Timer!! The best I’ve seen online so far… but how can I make the timer smaller please. I want to put it in a corner of a single slide.

Kindly advise
#32

Jessica Pyne

2:46 pm, February 22nd, 2011

Hi Wes, the timer can be made smaller, but it can be a little fiddly – it is on our design team’s To-Do list, but they are very busy at the moment! It is worth noting however that if you set the timer to play in the corner of a slide, that anything in the foreground of the slide would have to be timed exactly to match the timer – i.e., each slide would have to be on for exactly a minute, and you wouldn’t be able to click through anything. So it’s probably not the best solution! If you want it to play in the background while you have something else on, you would have to play it on a different machine.
#33

Becky

5:20 pm, February 25th, 2011

I use Global Presenter for my wireless mouse. They used to provide software that enabled me to have one of the buttons on the mouse hotwired to a clock. When I clicked on the button the clock automatically came on the screen. Really great for training and wanting to put in a break a different points and not have to step over to the computer to make it show up. I now have Windows 7 and this software doesn’t work with Windows 7.

I saw your countdown slides, Do you know of any type of a clock that I can use without going out of my PPT? Or even one that I could toggle to that would show the actual time?
#34

Jessica Pyne

4:08 pm, March 1st, 2011

Hi Becky,

It’s not something we’ve looked into ourselves but there is a solution out there – see the Microsoft Office description to have a look. This should do what you’re looking for – alteratively, if you deliver your presentation in ‘Presenter Mode’, the time will appear in the bottom right hand corner.
#35

Becca

4:39 pm, March 25th, 2011

For some reason when I add the timer to my existing PPP it doesn’t transition between the timer slides. It stops after counting one minute and then I have to manually click to get it to advance to the next minute to keep counting down. Is there an additional setting that I need to play to have the minutes count down consectively without any intervention?
#36

Lee-Anne

12:38 pm, April 3rd, 2011

How do I make this timer last longer – I have a conference with 45 minute presentations?

Thanks,
#37

Jessica Pyne

10:48 pm, April 4th, 2011

Lee-Anne – Making the timer last longer involves creating additional slides, so can’t be done with the existing file. We don’t have longer lengths available for this timer, but we do have files for our digital PowerPoint timer that go up to 90 minutes. I hope this helps!
#38

Jessica Pyne

4:01 pm, April 7th, 2011

Becca, sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you. You may have to check the animation timings on the slides if you’ve pasted them into another deck – simply select the first animation on each slide (under Slideshow > Custom Animation) and check that it is programmed to start ‘After Previous’. This should get the slides running smoothly again.

If this doesn’t solve the problem, or if you are unsure how to do this, please get back in touch and we’ll help you further.
#39

khalware@yahoo.com

4:15 pm, April 10th, 2011

realy i like it very mutch
#40

Jessica Pyne

4:00 pm, April 11th, 2011

Thanks for the kind words – we’re glad you like it!
#41

Andrew

6:09 pm, April 13th, 2011

This is very nice. We are trying to add in an activity to the presentation where there are 30 seconds for trivia. I can select the slide to get to a minutes countdown, but can the timer be set to 30 seconds? Thank you.
#42

diane

7:43 pm, April 13th, 2011

Do you have the same timer for an hour or is there an easy way for me to change it myself? This is great! I use it all the time!
#43

Jessica Pyne

11:11 pm, April 13th, 2011

Sorry Andrew, but short of editing the objects and animations themselves, there is no easy way to set the timer to 30 seconds. I’ll pass the request on to our design team, and see if they can get a 30 second version out for you!

Diane – Unfortunately we do not currently have hour versions for this timer. Our Digital PowerPoint Timer has versions up to 90 minutes, if you’re willing to try a more futuristic design.
#44

Jonathan

8:20 am, May 24th, 2011

Regarding having the countdown clock show days and even months. We are looking to include countdown clocks for the time until some major projects go into production. Currently that is about 3 months away but we would like to include countdown clocks now in our presentations. From this standpoint it may be worth while making a CC that has days and months as well.
#45

Jessica Pyne

1:17 pm, May 25th, 2011

Hi Jonathan,

Unfortunately, we find in most cases that it is simply not practical to have a PowerPoint presentation open for that length of time. The clock won’t continue to count in the background if you close the PowerPoint viewer or turn the computer off. In any case, PowerPoint was not built for that sort of use, and it is highly likely that the program would be unable to cope with the number of animations that would be involved with this time period (it starts to have difficulties at over an hour). Including a timer in a presentation would not work either, as the countdown has its own animations and timings, which would affect how the presentation runs. I suggest looking for an online countdown timer to fulfill your needs – there are plenty of free ones available on the Internet.
#46

Ein

4:39 am, June 13th, 2011

Very very good. Thank you so much
#47

Jessica Pyne

9:43 am, June 13th, 2011

You’re welcome, Ein – we’re glad you like it! If you have any suggestions for other content you would like to see on the site, please let us know.
#48

alfonso

10:12 am, June 21st, 2011

Like !!!
and a small clock for the speaker? It would very useful for events with no much time for speechs …
#49

Jessica Pyne

2:46 pm, June 22nd, 2011

Unfortunately that type of clock wouldn’t work, as it would interfere with any animations on the slides. If you can’t get a small clock set up onstage and don’t fancy using a watch, some presentation remote clickers have countdown clocks built into them.
#50

Ceanlia

6:59 pm, June 30th, 2011

Hi. thank you. I’m doing a presentation and this is perfect. thank you for allowing me to download and use it. How can I get it to do seconds? I’m doing a one minute ice breaker and want to use the clock to indicate the time.
Ceanlia
#51

Jessica Pyne

5:04 pm, July 1st, 2011

You’re welcome, Ceanlia. The clock will count down in seconds automatically – if you want to start it from one minute, then start on the one minute slide. In this case, that would be slide 21. Select the slide and then hit Shift + F5 to start from that slide. Alternatively, you could delete all the slides before slide 21 so that slide 21 becomes the first slide. Hope your presentation goes well!
#52

James

2:33 pm, July 25th, 2011

Thank you for this great solution!
#53

Charlie

7:09 pm, August 21st, 2011

This is a great convenience. Thanks very much for creating it!

I really need 90 second countdown. Do you suppose if I sent a case of beer you development team could whip one out?
#54

Jessica Pyne

5:57 pm, August 25th, 2011

I’ll pass on your request Charlie, and I’m sure the team would have appreciated the beer (which unfortunately they are unable to accept)! 30 and 90 seconds are the next planned developments for this, so I’ll let you know as soon as they are up.
#55

Charlie

11:02 am, August 28th, 2011

Thank you, Jessica.
#56

Jim

3:54 pm, September 5th, 2011

This may be a dumb question, but once I have inserted the timer into my presentation, how do I start it to count down once I am on the slide I want it on?
#57

Jim

5:20 pm, September 5th, 2011

Figured it out! Thanks anyway!
#58

Jessica Pyne

7:30 am, September 6th, 2011

Glad you solved the problem, Jim – hope you enjoy the timer!
#59

Sharlaine

7:31 am, September 9th, 2011

Hi. I’ve been trying to use the timer and every slide stops after a minute when running…There are only two numbers on the MINUTE part so when there’s 5 minutes it goes from 5 to 4 then there’s no 3 behind it so it just stops…Is there something that I’m doing wrong? Thanks
#60

Jessica Pyne

12:10 pm, September 9th, 2011

Hi Sharlaine, Our designers haven’t been able to reproduce this issue. What version of PowerPoint are you using? Are you on a PC or a Mac? It might be worth trying the file on a different computer, to see if you still encounter difficulties. Try downloading the PowerPoint file again too, to see if the version of the file you are currently using has somehow been corrupted. Please get back to us with more details if you are still having problems!
#61

Tabitha Johnson

7:00 pm, September 14th, 2011

Hi!
This is absolutely awesome! Is there a way to bring this down to 45 seconds?
#62

Jessica Pyne

12:18 pm, September 15th, 2011

Hi Tabitha,

Unfortunately this can only be done by editing the slide animations manually, which is very fiddly! We do have a request in with the design team to produce shorter versions of these slides, but they are very busy at the moment! Our Digital PowerPoint Timer has 30 and 90 second versions available, but the shortest countdown you can currently have on the original PowerPoint Countdown Timer without editing the slides is one minute, I’m afraid.
#63

Dion Danekilde

11:58 am, September 20th, 2011

Nice countdown timer. Is it possible to download a 16:9 version?
#64

Jessica Pyne

9:40 pm, September 23rd, 2011

Hi Dion, Unfortunately, the same applies – we’re happy to provide it for you, but we’ll have to wait for the design availability I’m afraid. We’ll let you know when our designers have enough free time to produce this! Thank you for the comment – if you have any more suggestions, please let us know.
#65

Kate

10:02 am, October 24th, 2011

Awesome!

Don’t you love t when you think ‘there should be such thing as a powerpoint timer,’ so you google it, and there it is!

Thanks guys, will hopefully be using this for our Trivia Night fundraiser next month!

Kate
#66

Lisa

3:31 pm, October 26th, 2011

I’m having the same problem as Sharlaine – the timer stops have one minute – whichever minute I’m on.
#67

Jessica Pyne

9:39 pm, October 26th, 2011

Glad to have proved so useful, Kate! Hope your fundraiser goes well.
#68

Jessica Pyne

9:50 pm, October 26th, 2011

Hi Lisa, have you checked your slide transition settings? You may have it set so that you have to click to advance the slide. If this isn’t the case, can you reply with a little more information? What version of PowerPoint are you using? Are you on a PC or a Mac? As I mentioned above, it might be worth trying the file on a different computer, or downloading it again. Let me know if you’re still having problems, and we’ll see what we can do.
#69

Mark

2:16 pm, November 5th, 2011

I’d love to use this timer in conjunction with a discussion question. How would I alter the slides so that I can make the timer smaller, to allow for more of the screen to be dedicated to text?

Thanks you!
#70

Jessica Pyne

12:02 pm, November 7th, 2011

Hi Mark – Unfortunately, this would be pretty complicated, and there’s no simple way to do it. We do actually have a request in with the design team to produce a version of this timer for exactly that, but as they are constantly busy with client work we can’t promise that this will be ready soon! I’ll be posting it up as soon as it is, so keep checking back – but for now, I’m afraid that we can only offer you the full size version.
#71

Ian Maclaren

12:05 pm, November 23rd, 2011

Absolutely brilliant idea and timer. Is there an easy way to make a countdown at half minute intervals as I have a conference where the time allocated to each speaker is 7mins 30 sec.

Thanks for your brilliant support

Ian
#72

Jessica Pyne

11:50 pm, November 23rd, 2011

Thanks for the comment, Ian. Unfortunately there is no easy way to edit the file to do this, but you could pause the slideshow at the relevant point and then continue to play it when required. Hope your conference goes well!
#73

Anect Rivas

2:07 am, November 26th, 2011

SUPER handy
#74

Jessica Pyne

12:25 pm, November 28th, 2011

Glad we could help, Anect.
#75

Dinuwan

9:57 am, December 9th, 2011

Fantaastic………….
#76

dianne

12:29 am, December 12th, 2011

Hello,

Sorry to be such a doofus, but how the heck do I get this to work? I would love to have a timer to training powerpoint I am working on for someone.

Thank you!!
#77

Jessica Pyne

6:05 pm, December 16th, 2011

Hi Dianne, download the file by clicking on the relevant link and simply start the slides in slideshow mode – they will run as a presentation. Starting from different slides will give you a different length of countdown. If you want to insert the slides within a presentation, simply copy and paste the countdown slides in place within your presentation.
#78

Regnick

7:38 am, December 29th, 2011

Awesome…..i really loved it and cant wait to use it as i count down the end of 2011…if i didnt get such a timer ma bosses where going to fire me….Thanx alot guys …we can share my next months salary..lol
#79

Jessica Pyne

11:21 am, January 3rd, 2012

Glad we could help, Regnick! Hope your countdown went well.
#80

Arlene

6:51 pm, January 10th, 2012

Any chance the 30 second timer is available for the previous not digital edition? :-)
#81

Jessica Pyne

5:10 pm, January 11th, 2012

Hi Arlene – We’d very much like there to be a 30 second version of this timer available, but unfortunately our designers just haven’t had the time to develop this. I promise that as soon as they have a spare moment, this is our next priority – but I can’t tell you when that spare moment will be!
#82

Margaret

5:20 pm, January 17th, 2012

This is awesome! Definitely will help me out running a “Flash Mentoring Event” at work, timed at 9 minutes each session.

I have one issue though. It seems to stop after one minute. I tried your recommendation above, but it doesn’t seem to work. Any suggestions? My event is tomorrow!
#83

Stuart

3:08 pm, January 18th, 2012

Hi there,

I was wondering how it is possible to change the timer to 30 seconds when dealing as in depth as to work with the animations. I was told by a co-worker that someone we know previously grabbed the timer and in 20 seconds changed it to 30. I’ve done all the research possible even as far as to try changing the animations to make it work. I’m stuck; I have no idea. I understand that you stated before you do not have a 30 second version, but is there a way I can change this timer even if it’s time consuming?

Thank you for your time,
Stuart
#84

Jessica Pyne

4:35 pm, January 24th, 2012

Hi Stuart,

I don’t know where you got your 20-second statistic from, as I’m afraid it’s really not that simple! It’s easy to cut down whole minutes but as you’ve discovered, cutting it down to seconds involves a lot of editing. I’ll ask our designers to provide a guide and email it on to you, but I don’t know how easy to follow it will be. If you really want a 30 second timer now our Digital PowerPoint Timer has 10, 20 and 30 second versions available.
#85

LibraryTeacher

9:16 pm, February 3rd, 2012

Very cool! I thought my students would like it but I was surprised at how much it motivated them to stay on task, then come back together to whole group at the end!