Stopwatch
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Tips
- Use the Lap button to record split times while the stopwatch runs
- Best and slowest laps are highlighted in the list
- Millisecond precision for accurate timing
About the Stopwatch
The Stopwatch is a precise elapsed-time counter that runs entirely in your browser, with start, stop, and reset controls plus a lap (split) feature for recording intermediate times without halting the clock. It is ideal for timing anything live — workouts, cooking steps, presentations, study sessions, or sports drills — where you want to measure how long something actually took rather than count down from a set value.
Internally a browser stopwatch measures elapsed time by recording a high-resolution start timestamp and continuously comparing it to the current time, rather than incrementing a counter on a fixed interval, which keeps the displayed time accurate even if the tab throttles in the background. Lap timing captures the moment you tap the button and stores both the cumulative elapsed time and the split since the previous lap, so you can review pace across segments after you stop.
Common use cases include interval training where each lap is one round, debugging how long a manual process takes, timing speeches against a target length, or simply replacing a kitchen timer. Because it counts up with no preset endpoint, it complements a countdown-style Pomodoro Timer: use the stopwatch when you want to discover a duration and the Pomodoro Timer when you want to enforce one.
Practical tips: record a lap at each milestone so you can compare splits later, and remember that closing or refreshing the tab will clear the running time since this is a client-side tool. For converting a recorded result into other units or comparing two recorded sessions, hand the numbers off to a Time Duration Calculator.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the lap button do?
- It records a split — the cumulative elapsed time at that moment and the time since the previous lap — without stopping the running clock, so you can capture milestones on the fly.
- Does the stopwatch keep accurate time if I switch tabs?
- Yes for the final reading. It computes elapsed time from a saved start timestamp, so even if the display updates less often in a background tab, the total stays accurate.
- Will my times be saved if I refresh the page?
- No. The stopwatch runs in your browser session, so refreshing or closing the tab resets it. Note down or copy any laps you need to keep.
- What is the difference between a stopwatch and a timer?
- A stopwatch counts up from zero to measure how long something takes, while a timer counts down from a preset value to signal when time is up.