About BeepWhenDone
A timer that knows what it is timing.
Almost every timer ever made, on a phone, an oven or a website, is built without any idea of what it is timing. It counts down from whatever number you give it and makes a noise at zero. That is fine when you already know the number. It is not much help when the number is the thing you came to find out, or when the job has a step in the middle that the countdown knows nothing about.
BeepWhenDone puts the timer next to the thing you are doing. The egg timer shows you what the yolk looks like at each minute. The rice timer counts the simmer and then the rest, because the rest is the part people skip. The air fryer timer tells you when to shake the basket. Each page carries the times, the conditions those times assume and the pictures that let you check the result, so the countdown and the answer are in the same place.
How the pages are made
A timer only gets its own page when there is something to learn on it: a table of times, a method, a picture of what done looks like. A page that would only be the plain timer with a different number on it is not made, and a plain countdown is always there on the front page for everything else.
The times come from standard cooking guidance and are written with the conditions they depend on, like the size of the egg, the thickness of the steak or whether the oven is fan or conventional. Kitchens vary, so every table says what it assumes and where to check early.
Where a page gives a safe temperature for meat, poultry or fish, it follows the USDA and the UK Food Standards Agency, and says so on the page. Where cooks usually stop earlier than that, for a rare steak or a moist salmon fillet, the page says that too, and which of the two numbers is the safe one.
How the timer works
The alarm is booked on your device the moment you press start, so it sounds on time even if you switch to another tab. After your first visit the pages work without a connection, which a kitchen wifi appreciates.
There is no account, no app to install and no signup. Your sound, volume and current countdown are kept on your own device so they survive a reload, and none of it is sent anywhere. The privacy page explains exactly what is and is not collected.
How it stays free
The site is free to use and there are no plans to put any of it behind a login or a paid tier. There is no advertising on it at the moment. If that changes, it will be to pay for running the site, and the privacy page will say so before it happens.
Who makes it
BeepWhenDone is made and maintained by one developer in Denmark. It started as the timer I wanted in my own kitchen, and it has become my go-to whenever something is on the hob, in the oven or in the air fryer.
If a time on a page is wrong, a step is missing, or there is a timer you need that is not here yet, send me an email. It reaches a person, and it is how the next pages get chosen.
Last updated: September 28, 2026