tooloora

20 Minute Timer — screen breaks, nap, oven

Twenty minutes, preset. The interval your eyes need, the upper end of a power nap and the classic tray in the oven.

Runs locally — nothing is uploaded

20:00

Remaining

Minutes and seconds may go above 59: 90 in the minute field means one and a half hours.

Quick pick

Runs locally in your browser — nothing is sent.

Other durations

1 minute3 minutes5 minutes10 minutes15 minutes30 minutes45 minutes1 hourPomodoro

Twenty minutes is the interval that comes up everywhere: press start and the preset timer runs 1,200 seconds, then signals with sound and a visible alert. It is the recommended gap between screen breaks, the upper limit of a power nap and the baking time of a standard tray, all in one duration.

What is the 20-20-20 rule?

It is the standard advice against tired eyes at a screen, promoted by the American Academy of Ophthalmology: every 20 minutes, look at something about 20 feet (roughly six metres) away for 20 seconds. The point is the distance, not the pause — near work keeps the ciliary muscle contracted, and looking far away lets it relax. A twenty minute timer is the simplest way to remember it.

What takes twenty minutes in the kitchen?

It is the default baking time for a sheet of vegetables, a tray of cookies at 180 degrees or a frozen pizza, and the point at which pasta water has long boiled over if nobody was watching. In the kitchen the visible alert matters more than the tone: hands are busy, the extractor fan is loud, and a tab title you can glance at beats a sound you might not hear.

Is twenty minutes too long for a nap?

It is the upper end of the usual recommendation of ten to twenty minutes, and that is deliberate: past roughly twenty minutes the body moves into deep sleep, and waking from it leaves you groggier than before. Twenty works well if you need a few minutes to fall asleep, because the countdown starts when you press the button and not when you drift off.

How to set the timer

  1. Press start — twenty minutes are already set.
  2. Go back to work, the kitchen or the couch; the remaining time stays in the tab title.
  3. At zero you get a tone and a visible alert; reset to start the next twenty minutes.

Frequently asked questions

Does the 20-20-20 rule need a timer at all?

In practice yes, because deep work is exactly the state in which you forget it. A visible countdown in the tab title is enough of a reminder without being a notification that interrupts you.

Can I keep restarting it automatically?

The timer does not loop on its own by design. An alarm that fires unasked in a background tab is the fastest way to make people close the tab, so restarting stays a deliberate tap on reset and start.

Does the timer keep running when I switch tabs?

Yes. The remaining time is calculated from the timestamp at which you pressed start, not by counting ticks. Browsers slow background timers down to about one call per minute, and a sleeping device stops them completely — a counting timer would fall behind by exactly that amount. This one simply subtracts again when the tab comes back and shows the correct value.

Does the timer send anything to a server?

No. No server is involved at all: the countdown is a subtraction against your device clock, done entirely in JavaScript in your browser. There is no account, no cookie for the timer, and nothing is uploaded or sent anywhere. You can load the page, switch to airplane mode and the timer still runs — which is the simplest way to verify the claim yourself.