5 Minutes Hourglass Timer — Free Online Sand Timer
Free 5-minute hourglass timer with flowing sand animation. Great for meetings, presentations, and timed activities.
Why a 5 minutes hourglass?
Five minutes is the canonical Pomodoro short break — and the standard egg timer for soft-boiled. It's the duration where most people can fully disengage from one task and return refreshed.
What people use a 5 minutes hourglass for
Pomodoro short break
After each 25-minute focus block, take 5 minutes off — stand up, stretch, hydrate. Long enough to reset, short enough to not lose context.
Soft-boiled eggs
Drop room-temperature eggs into boiling water. 5 minutes gives a runny yolk; 6 jammy; 7 cooked through.
Meditation entry-level
The shortest meditation session most apps recommend. Enough to settle the breath but not enough to feel daunting.
Eye-rest break
The 20-20-20 rule extended: every 25 minutes of screen work, look 20 feet away for 5 minutes (or at least the 20-second standard).
Stand-up meeting
Daily stand-ups should hit a hard 5-minute cap. Visible time helps prevent meandering.
The 5 minutes interval, in context
The Pomodoro Technique (Francesco Cirillo, 1980s) cemented 25-minute work + 5-minute break as the canonical interval. Subsequent research suggests the ratio matters more than the exact numbers — but 5 minutes is now culturally encoded as "a real break, not just a glance away."
For deeper breaks, see the 15-minute long-break hourglass. For tea steeping, 3-5 minutes covers most leaf types.
5 Minutes Hourglass Timer
Free 5-minute hourglass timer with flowing sand animation. Great for meetings, presentations, and timed activities.
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5 Minutes hourglass FAQ
How long does a 5 minutes hourglass run?
This hourglass timer runs for exactly 5 minutes (300 seconds). The sand animation flows in real time, and an alarm sounds when the timer finishes.
Can I use the 5 minutes hourglass for board games?
Yes — board games like Pictionary, Scrabble, Catchphrase, and Codenames typically use a 5-minute turn timer. The visual sand flow makes it easy for all players to see how much time remains without checking a phone screen.
Can I reset the hourglass before the 5-minute timer is up?
Yes. Click the reset button at any time to flip the hourglass and start the 5-minute countdown from the beginning. The sand returns to the top chamber and you can start fresh.
Does the alarm sound at the end of the 5-minute timer?
Yes. When the last sand grain reaches the bottom chamber after 5 minutes, the timer plays a soft alarm. You can change the alarm sound (Warm, Chime, Bright, or None) using the selector under the timer.
Can I run the 5 minutes hourglass in fullscreen mode?
Yes. Click the Fullscreen button in the top-right corner of the timer panel to expand the hourglass to fill your screen — useful for classroom display, group activities, or distraction-free meditation.