Free Online Stopwatch
A precise stopwatch with lap times and keyboard shortcuts. Press Space to start — it stays accurate to the millisecond, even in a background tab.
Space start / pause · L lap · R reset
Tired of forgetting to press Start?
A stopwatch only measures the time you remember to time. Chronoid tracks every app, website, and document you work in on your Mac — automatically. See exactly where your hours went without ever touching a start button, then turn them into invoices in one click. 100% local and private.
Trusted by 450+ Mac users · $49 one-time, no subscription
How to use this stopwatch
Press Start (or hit Space) and the stopwatch begins counting in minutes, seconds, and hundredths of a second. Press Lap (or L) each time you finish a split — a lap of a run, a round of an experiment, a question on a practice test. The list shows each lap's individual time next to the running total, newest first, with your fastest and slowest laps highlighted. Pause with Space whenever you need to, resume without losing time, and press Reset (or R) to clear everything and start over.
You can leave the tab and come back: the stopwatch computes elapsed time from real timestamps, so it never drifts, and the current time is always visible in the tab title while it runs.
Stopwatch vs automatic time tracking
A stopwatch is the right tool when you know exactly what you want to measure and when it starts: a sprint, a presentation rehearsal, how long a build takes. It fails at measuring a workday, because a workday does not have one start button — you switch between tasks dozens of times, and every switch is a chance to forget the timer. Studies of freelancers consistently find that manually timed hours undercount real work by 10–20%, which for billable work is money left on the table.
That is the problem automatic trackers solve. Instead of you telling the timer what you are doing, an app like Chronoid watches which application, website, or document is in front of you and builds the timeline itself. Use the stopwatch on this page for anything short and deliberate; if you are trying to reconstruct where entire days go, automatic tracking is the honest answer.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How accurate is this online stopwatch?
- It measures elapsed time from your system clock rather than counting screen updates, so it is accurate to the millisecond. The display shows hundredths of a second (MM:SS.cs) and refreshes about 20 times per second, but the underlying measurement is always the exact difference between when you pressed Start and now.
- Does the stopwatch keep running if I switch to another tab?
- Yes. Because every reading is computed from timestamps, the stopwatch stays exactly right even when your browser slows down background tabs. The elapsed time also appears in the browser tab title while it runs, so you can glance at it from any other tab.
- What keyboard shortcuts does the stopwatch support?
- Press Space to start or pause, L to record a lap while running, and R to reset everything. Shortcuts are ignored while you are typing in a text field, so they will not fire by accident.
- Is this stopwatch really free?
- Completely free — no account, no ads, no limits on how long it runs or how many laps you record. Everything happens in your browser; nothing is sent to our servers.
- How do I track time without starting a stopwatch?
- Use an automatic time tracker. Chronoid is a Mac app that records which apps, websites, and documents you work in — no start button, no stop button, nothing to forget. You get an accurate timeline of your whole day and can turn it into reports or invoices. It is a $49 one-time purchase with a 7-day free trial.