8 Minute Timer

Press Start to count down 8 minutes.

This free 8 minute timer counts down 8 minutes with a shrinking red disc you can read at a glance. 8 minutes is 480 seconds (four hundred and eighty seconds). It covers reheating a slice of pizza in the oven, a guided breathing session and a short training drill.

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What a 8 minute timer is good for

Eight minutes is a quiet workhorse of a timer. It is long enough to settle into a calming exercise and short enough to stand by the oven, which makes it useful in kitchens, therapy rooms and sports halls alike.

Reheating pizza

A cold slice comes back crisp in about eight minutes in a 200°C oven, far better than the microwave.

Guided breathing

Many guided breathing and body-scan recordings run for around eight minutes. Use the timer without the recording once you know the pattern.

A short skills drill

Coaches often run passing, shooting or footwork drills in blocks of about eight minutes before rotating players.

Soft vegetables

Diced carrots, cauliflower florets and new potatoes cut small are tender after about eight minutes of simmering.

To pace yourself, glance at the disc rather than the numbers. With the 8 minute timer running, half the colour has gone after 4 minutes, and when only a quarter is left you have 2 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 8 minutes are for.

How to use the 8 minute timer

  1. It is ready

    The dial is already set to 8 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.

8 minutes in other units

8 minutes equals
Seconds480
Minutes8
Hours0.1333
Fraction of a day1/180

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 480 seconds in 8 minutes. That is 0.1333 of an hour, or four hundred and eighty seconds written out.

Bringing pizza back to life in the oven, an eight minute breathing or body-scan practice, a focused skills drill before rotating players, and simmering diced vegetables.

Yes. The 8 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 8 minutes are up.

No. The 8 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 8 minutes is readable from the back of the room.

Yes, once this page has loaded. Nothing is sent over the network while the 8 minutes count down, so a dropped connection will not stop the timer.

Reheated pizza in a hot oven, small diced vegetables, frozen peas and sweetcorn together, or a medium spaghetti that is not quite al dente. Start the 8 minute timer once the water boils.

When the 8 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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