Your quiet corner of the internet.
A gentle timer for the work in front of you. Nothing to set up, nothing to keep up with.
Free, forever. No account needed.
Time left:
Mae Hong Son, Thailand
Photograph by I Do Nothing But Love, Unsplash
What is Authentic Timer?
Authentic Timer is a free focus timer that runs in your browser. It counts twenty-five minutes of work in front of a credited photograph, offers a guided 4-7-8 breath, then five minutes of rest. It needs no account, and it is free, forever.
A timer you don’t have to watch.
Press Start above and turn to your work. After a few seconds the digits fade, and a thin line fills the ring as the block runs.
Hover or tap to see the time. The digits return for the last minute.
How a session goes.
Twenty-five minutes of work, a 4-7-8 breath, five minutes of rest, then the same again. Skip the breath whenever you like.
- 25 minutes of work
- A 4-7-8 breath, then 5 minutes of rest
- Again
The collection.
A hundred photographs of Asia, each with the name of the one who took it. Sixteen landscape paintings from Birmingham Museums Trust. Plain walls, for days when you want nothing in the frame.
Mae Hong Son, Thailand
Photograph by I Do Nothing But Love, Unsplash
A few things, close at hand.
Most tools ask for setup, categories and streaks before you have typed a word. This one asks for twenty-five minutes.
- A done list
- Write down what you finished today. The list grows, and never nags.
- Music one key away
- 30 playlists chosen for concentration. Press M to play and N for the next one.
- The keyboard
- Space starts and pauses, B hangs the next view, F is focus mode and T your tasks. Esc closes what is open.
- Backgrounds
- 100 photographs and 16 paintings, each credited to its photographer or museum, and plain walls.
A breath between blocks.
When a block ends, the timer offers a guided 4-7-8 breath: in for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Take it or skip it. It stands on its own, too.
Helen Allingham
Harvest Fields in Westerham, Kent
1880–1910
“The safe place to work and manage my time that I was looking for.”
Nacho, Software Engineer “It helps me stay focused while I work, with more efficiency, focus on one task at a time.”
Aim, PhD Student “Beautiful.”
Marcos, Graphic Designer
Made between Sevilla and Bangkok.
In November 2024, I was enduring an illness that limited my quality of life and forced me to manage my time carefully in the few hours a day I could focus in front of a screen. I started looking for a clean timer and task manager that felt safe and uncluttered, but I always ended up combining apps like Notion, Forest, and Todoist (which I love) instead of using just one tab in my browser as a ‘productivity hub’.
It took 8 months to finally release an app I was proud of.