Never miss another important event with a countdown widget for Mac

Do you know the answer to these questions: How many days until the end of the month? Your next holiday? Your birthday or another event? No? You need a count down widget on your Apple Mac.

Even if you are good with dates, these questions are hard to answer. Would you like to know? There are varies Today panel widgets, menu bar items and appps that can tell you how many days or even ours and minutes until a certain event. It may be personal, such as a holiday or birthday, business related like a meeting or conference, or just out of interest, like when the next Apple Mac or iPhone is to launch.

You can put events in the Apple Calendar app and set a reminder the day or hour before, but it is not easy to see how many days there are until your next holiday or Christmas for example. You might need a constant visible reminder of when a project is due and seeing the time tick down each day focuses the mind on the task at hand.

Here are some simple countdown apps for the Mac and all can be found in the Mac App Store and installed for free.

Countdowns - with widget

Countdowns - with widget by Martin Stemmle is a free app in the Mac App Store that shows the answer to your countdown questions in the Today view in macOS. It is a handy little utility and it is a really basic and simple app, but that is what makes it so good. There are no distractions and it has only the features you need.

I originally installed the app years ago and had the free version, which allows you to count down to events up to 30 days in advance. I re-installed Countdowns in macOS Catalina and that limit is no longer there. Maybe I paid for the full version which has no limits and forgot, which is likely since it is only US $0.99 (UK £0.99).

Adding events to Countdowns is easy and clicking the plus button in the top right corner of the window opens a pane with a box for the title and a calendar. Set the date using the calendar controls and tick the Include time box to see an option to include the time of an event. This could be useful for counting down to a sporting event, meeting, flight and so on.

Click the Today / Notifications icon at the right side of the menu bar and select the Today tab at the top. Then Click the Edit button at the bottom and add Countdowns. A widget appears in the Today panel with all the events you added.

Clicking the i button on the right enables you to delete items that are no longer needed and add new items. It brings up the main window. Countdowns is a great addition to the Today screen. If you have an iPhone or iPad, you will find an iOS version that does the same job. The app can sync events to other Macs and devices through iCloud.

Countdowns

The similarly named Countdowns from Hydra Softworks is another free countdown app in the Mac App Store. It adds some extra features, but also some limitations too. The main limitation is that the free version only supports one countdown event. The Pro version with no limits costs US $9.99 (UK £9.99), which is quite expensive for what it does.

The app comes with some predefined countdown timers to common events. This makes them very easy to set up and you just select the one you want from a list. You can create your own events of course and there is a choice of Countdown, Short Countdown or Progress. The Progress option lets you measure the progress instead of counting down and you set a start date and end date, and it tells you the percentage progress.

The app lets you set a date and a time for an event and add it to a list (only one item for free). The first item on the list can be shown in the menu bar if you prefer and so it is always visible. You can always see how many days or hours to an event or the progress to an event.

The Countdowns app also has a Today panel widget that shows the same information. You can show the menu bar, Today widget or both. The app is good, but it costs more than I am willing to pay.

Countdown Timer Plus

Countdown Timer Plus by Aravindhan Parasuram is another free app in the Mac App Store and this one is a bit different to the other two. Up to three countdown timers can be running at any time for free and a Pro version is a reasonable UK £1.99 (around US $1.99).

The app ads a menu bar icon and clicking it enables countdown timers to be added to it. Unlike the other countdown timer apps, Countdown Timer Plus adds the timer to the desktop as a tile. Icons appear when the mouse hovers over the time and clicking the gear icon enables the timer to be configured.

A title can be added and a date set using a pop-up calendar the same as with the other apps. You can choose the countdown units if you prefer and the time remaining can be shown in months, days, hours, minutes or seconds. The tile can be kept on top of other windows or it can sit on the desktop underneath other windows. The color can be selected from a small palette. There are several tile syles, but that is a pro feature.

I like this app a lot and the low price, similar to a coffee at your favourite cafe, means it is a no brainer to go pro and have access to all the features. It is recommended.