16 Minute Timer

Press Start to count down 16 minutes.

This free 16 minute timer counts down 16 minutes with a shrinking red disc you can read at a glance. 16 minutes is 960 seconds (nine hundred and sixty seconds). It suits a reading block or a craft activity at home or school.

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What a 16 minute timer is good for

Sixteen minutes is a good length for activities that need a little settling-in time. Children in particular take a few minutes to get absorbed in reading or crafting, and sixteen leaves enough time after that for real work.

A reading block

Many schools ask children to read for fifteen to twenty minutes a day. Sixteen minutes is a manageable daily goal for younger readers.

Craft activities

Cutting, sticking and colouring activities in class often run for about sixteen minutes, with a few minutes after to tidy up.

Language practice

Sixteen minutes of vocabulary review or a short listening exercise is a realistic daily target for language learners.

An oven-baked fillet

A cod or salmon fillet roasts in about sixteen minutes at 200°C.

To pace yourself, glance at the disc rather than the numbers. With the 16 minute timer running, half the colour has gone after 8 minutes, and when only a quarter is left you have 4 minutes to wrap up. Open fullscreen if the timer needs to be read across a room, and add a label so everyone knows what the 16 minutes are for.

How to use the 16 minute timer

  1. It is ready

    The dial is already set to 16 minutes. To change it, drag the disc, tap a preset or open Custom.

  2. Press Start

    Or press the Space bar. The red disc shrinks back towards 12 o’clock as the time runs down.

  3. Watch the disc

    Read the time left at a glance, or open fullscreen for a big dial that fills the screen.

  4. Time’s up

    Your alarm plays until you press Stop. Press Reset or R to run the same time again.

16 minutes in other units

16 minutes equals
Seconds960
Minutes16
Hours0.2667
Fraction of a day1/90

Why use this timer

Why a visual timer helps

A shrinking disc turns time into something you can see. You read how much is left at a glance, without doing sums on a clock, and an invisible deadline feels less stressful when you can watch it approach. That is why visual timers are a staple in classrooms and are widely used by people with ADHD and autistic children and adults. Read our guide to using a visual timer, how it helps with ADHD time blindness, classroom transitions and autism.

Why this timer is accurate

The countdown is anchored to your device clock rather than counted in animation frames. It does not drift if you switch tabs or your screen sleeps: it keeps running in the background and still sounds the alarm on time. When you come back, the disc jumps straight to the correct position.

Frequently asked questions

There are 960 seconds in 16 minutes. That is 0.2667 of an hour, or nine hundred and sixty seconds written out.

A daily reading block for children, a classroom craft activity, sixteen minutes of language practice, or roasting a fish fillet in a hot oven.

Yes. The 16 minute countdown is anchored to your device clock rather than counted frame by frame, so it stays accurate in a background tab and the alarm still fires when the 16 minutes are up.

No. The 16 minute timer runs in your browser on phone, tablet and desktop. It is free, and there is no account, app or download.

Yes. Press the fullscreen button or the F key. The dial fills the screen, so the remaining part of the 16 minutes is readable from the back of the room.

Yes, once this page has loaded. Nothing is sent over the network while the 16 minutes count down, so a dropped connection will not stop the timer.

Many schools recommend around fifteen to twenty minutes of daily reading. A 16 minute timer is a realistic target that children can see shrinking.

When the 16 minutes are up the disc is empty, the screen shows Time’s up! and your alarm plays until you press Stop. It stops by itself after five minutes.

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