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Guide · Events and stages

How to show a countdown timer in Keynote, for you or for the room

By Blink Brief · Updated  · How pages are made

Keynote's countdown is the Timer on the presenter display: choose Play › Customize Presenter Display, tick Timer, select Remaining and type the length, and it counts down on your Mac's screen while the slides play on the projector. The audience never sees it, because it isn't on the slides. For a countdown the room sees, play a countdown video on a slide. For one the speaker sees on stage, away from the laptop, run a timer on a screen that faces them.

Short answer

  • For you: Play › Customize Presenter Display › Timer › Remaining, then the length in hours and minutes.
  • For the room: a countdown video on the slide, with Start movie on click turned off.
  • For the speaker on stage: a timer on a tablet or a second laptop at the lectern, such as the one on this page.

Keynote's own timer: on the presenter display only

The presenter display is the screen Keynote shows you while the slides play on another display: the current slide, the next one, your notes, a clock and a timer. With a projector connected, Apple's guide says the slideshow goes to the external display and the presenter display stays on your Mac. The timer lives there. Keynote has no timer you can place on a slide.

The Timer counts one of two ways: Elapsed, the time since you started, or Remaining, a countdown from a length you set. With no second display, Play › In Window shows the slideshow and the presenter display in two windows on one screen, and the timer runs there too.

Set it: Customize Presenter Display, Timer, Remaining

We did these steps on 5 November 2026 in Keynote 14.5 on a Mac with macOS 27.2, using Play › Rehearse Slideshow, which shows the presenter display without a projector. Apple's guide for the current Keynote describes the same dialog; in it you open the dialog from the button at the top right of the presenter display while presenting.

  1. Open the presentation and choose Play › Customize Presenter Display…. The presenter display opens with a dialog of the same name.
  2. Tick Timer. Two choices beside it become active: Elapsed and Remaining.
  3. Select Remaining and type the length in the box next to it. The box takes hours and minutes: 00:15 is 15 minutes, which the presenter display shows as 00:15:00.
  4. Untick what you don't need among Current Slide, Next Slide, Presenter Notes, Clock and Ready to Advance Indicator. To make the timer bigger, Apple's guide says to click it and drag a selection handle. Then click OK.
  5. Choose Play › Rehearse Slideshow to see it, or play the slideshow. The timer waits at the full length until the presentation starts; Apple's guide says it starts when you press the Space bar or the Right Arrow key.

In our test the setting stayed when we opened a new presentation, so a 15-minute countdown set for one talk is still there for the next. Check the length before each speaker.

A countdown on the slide: a video

For a countdown the room sees, the slide has to carry it, and in Keynote that means a video of numbers running down: a 5-minute video for a 5-minute countdown. These steps are from Apple's guide; our test didn't add a video.

  1. Drag the video file onto the slide, or click the Media button in the toolbar, then Choose Photos or Videos. Keynote plays files that QuickTime supports, such as .mov.
  2. Click the video, then the Movie tab in the Format sidebar.
  3. Deselect Start movie on click. The video then plays as soon as the slide appears; by default it waits for a click.

A countdown made of builds, one number appearing per second, works for 10 seconds; a minute would take 60 of them. Countdown timers in PowerPoint and a countdown in Google Slides without YouTube cover the same choice in those apps.

A countdown in front of the speaker when the Mac is in the booth

At a conference or in a church, the Mac that plays Keynote often sits in the booth at the back. The presenter display, and its timer, are then in front of the operator, not the speaker. Keynote can send the presenter display to a second external display (Apple's guide: Configure under that display's thumbnail, then Show Presenter Display), but a monitor on the stage needs a cable from the booth.

Without that cable, give the speaker a timer of their own: a tablet or a second laptop at the lectern, running the free timer below in its browser.

  1. Open this page on the tablet or laptop. No sign-up, and the timer sends nothing anywhere.
  2. Set the length: 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 or 45 minutes, or type minutes and seconds and press Set custom time.
  3. Press Full screen, then Start when the talk begins. The page asks the device to keep its screen on and says whether that worked.

A countdown timer for the speaker's screen

This timer needs JavaScript. Without it:

  1. Start the timer in the Clock app of a phone or tablet, and stand it where the speaker can see it.
  2. Or let the speaker hold an iPhone running Keynote's remote, which can show Keynote's timer (next section).

This timer runs on the one device that shows it, so whoever stands next to it starts and pauses it. It counts a number of minutes, not to a clock time, and nobody in the booth can change it or send the speaker a note. Those are what Blink Timer, our paid version in development, adds.

Our product · in development

Blink Timer: control the timer from another device in the booth, show it on several displays at once, and send the speaker messages such as "Wrap up". Planned price $29 per event or $210 a year.

Join the early list

For the booth set-up, cables and screens, see a speaker countdown you control from the booth. For apps that do remote control today, with their prices, see stage timer apps compared.

iPhone or iPad as the remote, with the timer in your hand

Keynote on an iPhone or iPad can control the slideshow on the Mac and show a timer. We had no iPhone or iPad for this guide, so these steps are Apple's, not tried.

  1. Install Keynote on the device and turn on Wi-Fi on both. With iOS 14 or iPadOS 14, allow Keynote in Settings › Privacy › Local Network.
  2. On the device, open Keynote, tap the remote button in the document manager, then tap Continue.
  3. On the Mac, choose Keynote › Settings, click Remote, select Enable, then click Link next to the device. Check that the four-digit codes match and click Confirm.
  4. Play the presentation on the Mac, then tap Play on the device.
  5. To switch between the timer and the time of day, tap the time or timer at the top of the device's screen.

Apple's guide doesn't say whether the remote's timer follows the Remaining setting on the Mac. Either way, it is for the person holding the device: a speaker who holds it sees the time, the room doesn't.

At 2 minutes left and at zero

In our test with a 1-minute Remaining timer, Keynote gave no warning before the end: the numbers were still white with 5 seconds left. At zero they turned red and counted the time over, so 10 seconds past the end read 00:00:10 in red. The slides didn't change; only the presenter display showed it.

  • Reset: press R while presenting. Keynote's shortcut list, opened with the ? key, calls it Reset timer. In our test the timer jumped back to the full length and counted down again at once.
  • Stopping isn't resetting: when we left the rehearsal with Esc and started it again, the timer carried on from where it was, already in red.

The browser timer on this page warns earlier: the numbers turn amber with 2 minutes left, red at 0:00, and then count the overtime as +0:01, +0:02. Its R key resets it too, while the timer has focus or is full screen.

Questions

Does Keynote have a countdown timer?

Yes, on the presenter display only. Choose Play › Customize Presenter Display, tick Timer, select Remaining and type the hours and minutes. It counts down on your screen while you present; the slides the audience sees carry no timer.

Can the audience see Keynote's timer?

Not when the slideshow plays on a separate display with mirroring off: the timer belongs to the presenter display, which stays on your Mac. Apple's guide says to turn mirroring off so viewers don't see the presenter display. To show the room a countdown, put a countdown video on a slide.

How do I reset the Keynote timer between speakers?

Press R while the presenter display is showing. Keynote's list of shortcuts (press ? while presenting) calls it Reset timer. In our test in Keynote 14.5, the timer went back to the length set and started counting down again at once. Leaving the rehearsal and starting it again did not reset it.

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