Pomodoro Timer

How to use the pomodoro timer

1. Check the settings: focus 25 minutes, short break 5, long break 15, and a long break after 4 focus sessions. Change any of them to suit your work.
2. Press Start to begin the first focus session. The title bar shows the time left and the phase.
3. When the alarm sounds, take the break shown. Press Start for the next phase, or tick Start the next phase automatically to chain them.
4. Use Skip to jump to the next phase, Reset to restart the current one, and Restart the cycle to go back to session 1.
5. Watch Focus sessions completed today grow. Use Clear today's count if you want it back at zero.

The Pomodoro method in brief

The Pomodoro Technique was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. You work in short timed blocks, traditionally 25 minutes, separated by short breaks, with a longer break after several blocks. The point is to make starting easy, protect your attention for a fixed window and make rest part of the plan.

With the defaults here, one full cycle is 4 focus sessions of 25 minutes (100 minutes), 3 short breaks of 5 minutes (15 minutes) and one long break of 15 minutes. That comes to 130 minutes, or 2 hours 10 minutes. No rule says 25 minutes suits everyone. Many people prefer 50 minutes with a 10 minute break, or 15 minute blocks for tasks they dread. All three lengths and the number of sessions before a long break are editable.

How the sequence works

The timer moves focus, short break, focus, short break and so on. After the last focus session in a cycle it switches to the long break instead, and after the long break it starts a fresh cycle. The line under the phase name tells you which session of the cycle you are on.

Skipping a phase moves on without counting it. Only a focus session that ran to zero adds to today's count, so skipping ahead does not inflate your total.

Accurate in the background

Each phase stores its end time and computes the time left from the browser clock, so it stays right while you work in another tab. With auto-start on, the next phase is timed from the exact end of the last one, not from whenever the tab woke up. If the tab was frozen for longer than a whole phase, the timer catches up and lands in the correct phase. A hidden tab can delay the alarm itself by up to about a minute, because browsers throttle background pages.

What is stored in your browser

Your settings and the count of focus sessions completed today are kept in this browser with localStorage. The count belongs to the calendar day on your device and starts again the next day. Nothing is sent to SumPanda or anyone else. Use the clear button, or clear site data, to remove it.

Assumptions and limits

• Lengths are whole minutes from 1 to 180, and a long break comes after 1 to 12 focus sessions.
• Changing a length while a phase is running applies from the next phase, not the current one.
• The page must stay open for the timer to run. Closing it stops the current phase.
• The daily count is per browser and per device. It is not shared between your phone and your computer.
• The alarm is a generated tone that only plays after you press Start. You can mute it and still see the completion message.

Formulas reviewed October 10, 2026. See the calculation methodology for how SumPanda rounds, tests and sources its formulas.

Frequently asked questions