How to use timers on your Apple Watch

Apple Watch comes with a handy Timers app, and in this tutorial, we’ll show you various ways to start a timer and work with multiple timers simultaneously.

Timer on Apple Watch

Note: Whether it’s your iPhone or your Apple Watch, you can set a timer for 1 second up to 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds.

Set a timer on Apple Watch

Here are three easy ways.

1. Using Siri

The easiest and perhaps fastest way to set a timer on the Apple Watch is via Siri. Just invoke Siri and say something like, “Set a timer for five minutes.” The timer will start the moment Siri finishes processing your command. You can tap this timer strip to go to the Timers app.

Set timer on Apple Watch using Siri

If you want to give a name to your timer, say something like “Start a boiling milk timer for 20 minutes.

Start timer on Apple Watch with name

Note: After you start a timer, it will start appearing in the Smart Stack widget area on watchOS 10 or later.

2. From the Timers app

1) Launch the Timers app on your Apple Watch.

2) Tap the plus button from the top.

Tap plus button in Timers app on Apple Watch

3) Pick a timer for 1 min, 3 min, 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 hr, or 2 hr, and it will instantly start the countdown.

4) Alternatively, you can tap the plus button (+), select the Hours, Minutes, and Seconds dial, and rotate the Digital Crown to set the timer duration. Finally, tap Start.

Start a quick or custom timer on Apple Watch

5) When the timer is running, you can pause it using the tiny orange button or hit the X icon to stop this timer. Tapping the plus button lets you add a new timer. You can also exit the Timer app, and it will keep running in the background.

6) Once the timer finishes, you will get both sound and haptic alerts on your wrist. You can tap the curved arrow icon to restart that timer from the beginning or hit the red X icon to exit the timer screen.

Active and finished timer on Apple Watch

Note: Unlike the Siri method, you cannot give a name (label) to the timer using the Timers app on Apple Watch.

3. Using watch face complication

You can add a timer complication to several watch faces, which will allow you to quickly jump inside the Timers app with a tap. We have explained how to add a complication to your watch face in our tutorial on using a stopwatch on Apple Watch. Follow the steps there, and select the Timer complication instead of the Stopwatch.

You can tap More and choose a pre-defined timer complication of 1 min, 3 mins, 5 mins, 10 mins, 15 mins, 30 mins, 1 hr, or 2 hr. Alternatively, you can also select the Timer complication that will open the Timers app and let you enter a custom duration.

Timer app complication on Apple Watch

Bonus: Use your iPhone timer

As the last tip, you can also set a timer on your iPhone by going to the Clock app. And when this timer ends, you will receive its alert on your iPhone as well as on your Apple Watch.

Timer on iPhone and Apple Watch

Use multiple timers

You can invoke Siri and use it to create two or more timers. With this method, you can give a name to your timers which can make it easy to keep track of them.

Additionally, you can also follow these steps to create multiple timers without names:

  1. Open the Timers app on your Apple Watch and start the first timer.
  2. After that, tap the plus button (+) and add another timer.
  3. You can switch between your various timers by swiping up or down on the screen or rotating the Digital Crown.
  4. You can also tap the back arrow button from the top left to see all timer cards.
Using Multiple Timers on Apple Watch

Related: How to set, use, and manage multiple timers on iPhone and iPad

Set a custom timer duration as a favorite

The Timers app on Apple Watch already has some pre-defined timer times like 1 minute, 3 minutes, and up to 2 hours. But if your work requires setting a custom timer, like 4 minutes 35 seconds frequently, you can add it as a favorite, and then tapping it will automatically start the timer for 4 minutes 35 seconds.

Note: This only works on watchOS 9 or earlier and seems to have been removed on current watchOS 10.

  1. Open the Timers app on your Apple Watch.
  2. Set the desired timer duration (like 4 minutes 35 seconds) and tap Start.
  3. You don’t have to wait for this countdown to end. Tap X to stop it, and it will take you back to the main Timers screen.
  4. Here, you will see this timer under the Recents heading. Swipe left on it and tap the star (favorite) button. This custom timer time is now added as a favorite. It will be visible under the Custom button. You can tap this favorite timer duration to start it instantly.
Set a custom timer duration as a favorite on Apple Watch

Remove recent timers

Don’t like seeing recent timers populating your small Apple Watch screen? You can remove favorites on watchOS 9 or earlier. On watchOS 10, you can tap Edit at the bottom of the Recent and All Timers screen, but it adds the red minus icon only for timer templates and not for removing recent timers.

No option to remove recent timers in Apple Watch on watchOS 10

Here’s how to remove a recent timer from Apple Watch:

  1. Swipe left on a recent timer and add it to favorite.
  2. Swipe left on that favorite timer and tap the red X button to delete it. This timer should no longer appear in the Recents section.
Remove recent timers on Apple Watch

Extra info: iPhone has the Clock app that takes care of your World Clock, Alarm, Stopwatch, and Timer needs. However, given the tiny screen size and to negate the need for excessive scrolling, Apple Watch has separate apps for World Clock, Alarm, Stopwatch, and Timer.

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