4 Hour Timer

Press Start to count down 4 hours.

This free 4 hour timer counts down 4 hours with a shrinking red disc you can read at a glance. 4 hours is 14,400 seconds (fourteen thousand four hundred seconds), or 240 minutes. It suits slow cooking, a revision day and a long journey leg.

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What a 4 hour timer is good for

Four hours is half a working day. Road safety bodies recommend a break of at least fifteen minutes every two hours of driving, so a four hour leg should include a stop, and slow cookers on high often finish a stew in four hours.

Slow cooking on high

Many slow cooker recipes take four hours on high or eight on low.

A revision day

Four hours split into blocks with breaks is a full morning or afternoon of revision.

A long journey

Plan a four hour drive with a break around halfway.

A long hike

A half-day hike of about four hours covers ten to fifteen kilometres.

To pace yourself, glance at the disc rather than the numbers. With the 4 hour timer running, half the colour has gone after 2 hours, and when only a quarter is left you have 1 hour to wrap up. Open fullscreen if the timer needs to be read across a room, and add a label so everyone knows what the 4 hours are for.

How to use the 4 hour timer

  1. It is ready

    The dial is already set to 4 hours. 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.

4 hours in other units

4 hours equals
Seconds14,400
Minutes240
Hours4
Days0.1667
Fraction of a day1/6

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 14,400 seconds in 4 hours, which is 240 minutes.

Slow-cooker recipes on high, a half-day revision session with breaks, planning a long drive or timing a half-day hike.

Yes. The 4 hour 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 4 hours are up.

No. The 4 hour 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 4 hours is readable from the back of the room.

Yes, once this page has loaded. Nothing is sent over the network while the 4 hours count down, so a dropped connection will not stop the timer.

Two hundred and forty minutes, which is 14,400 seconds.

When the 4 hours 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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