Your streak, in your pocket.

A free study timer app for iPhone and Android

StudiesTimer is a study timer, session tracker and focus app built for students. It started as a website used for millions of study sessions, and the mobile app is the same thing in your pocket: start a timer, tag what you are working on, and watch the hours, the streak and the weekly chart build up on their own. The core timer is free, with no account required to press start.

Why students move here from Forest and other focus apps

Almost every focus app on your phone is solving one problem: stop touching your phone for twenty-five minutes. That is a real problem and some of them solve it well. But it is one of three. The other two are knowing what you actually studied and not studying alone — and those are the two StudiesTimer is built around.

1. Deep stats, not one number

A total is not information. StudiesTimer saves every session against a subject, so at the end of a week you can see that you did nine hours of Maths and forty minutes of Chemistry — which is the number that changes how you revise. You get daily, weekly and monthly charts, per-subject splits, your best hours of the day, a full session history you can scroll back through, and a heat map of the year. Nothing is a black box: you can open any day and see the sessions that made it.

2. A clean interface you will actually keep open

The timer is the screen. No cartoon economy to feed, no currency, no nagging — just large legible digits, your subject, and the controls you need. It is designed to sit open on a second monitor or face-up beside your books for four hours without becoming irritating, and there are themes if you want it to look like something. The app and the website are the same design, so nothing has to be re-learned when you switch screens.

3. Study together, properly

Make a group with your friends or your class and you get live presence — you can see who is studying right now — plus built-in chat, a shared group leaderboard and group totals. It is not a friends list bolted onto a timer; the group is a place, and the accountability comes from other people seeing the same numbers you do. There is a global leaderboard too, if ranking is what makes you sit down.

4. Study duos — one friend, one shared streak

This is the part no other study timer does. A Study Buddy is one person, not a feed. You pair up, set one goal together, and share a streak that only counts the days you both showed up. If you study and they do not, the streak does not move — which turns a private habit into something you owe another person. Groups scale accountability; a duo concentrates it, and for most students the duo is the thing that works.

How StudiesTimer compares, app by app

vs Forest

Forest is the best known focus app there is, and its plant-a-tree loop is genuinely good at getting you to leave your phone alone. It is a phone-discipline app first: the tree is the point, and the reward for focusing is that the tree lives. StudiesTimer is aimed at what happens after the session ends — the subject breakdown, the history, the shared streak with your study partner. If your problem is the phone itself, plenty of people run Forest for the phone and StudiesTimer for the record, and nothing about that is contradictory.

vs Flora and other plant-a-tree timers

Flora and its relatives run the same growing-something loop with a social layer on top. The comparison is the same one: the loop is the product, and the statistics exist to serve the loop. Here the statistics are the product, and the social layer is a real group with live presence and chat, or a duo with a streak that can actually break.

vs Pomofocus, Focus To-Do and task-list pomodoro apps

These pair a Pomodoro timer with a task list, and if a checklist is what you are missing they do that well. StudiesTimer overlaps — there are goals, habits and a planner — but the centre of gravity is different: the unit here is a studied hour attached to a subject, not a ticked task. Ticking a task tells you something was finished. It does not tell you that you have not opened Physics in nine days. Our charts do.

vs Study Bunny and gamified pet timers

Gamified timers aimed at younger students trade analytics for a character to look after. StudiesTimer has a mascot too, and themes, and it is pleasant to use — but the numbers underneath are real ones you can take to a revision plan. You do not have to choose between an app that is nice to open and an app that tells you the truth.

vs Focusmate and coworking rooms

Focusmate books you into a video session with a stranger at a fixed time, and the accountability comes from a person watching. That works, and it costs you a scheduled appointment. StudiesTimer’s version is asynchronous and with people you already know: your group sees you are studying now, your buddy’s streak depends on you, and you never have to be on camera at 7am.

What you get, in one table

What it costs

The timer, streaks, groups, buddies and core stats are free. The free tier is ad-supported on the web. Premium removes ads and lifts the limits — more subject labels, full retained history, extra themes and the deeper insight views. Current plans are on the pricing page; nothing on this page requires paying for anything.

Getting started

1. Install the app from the store above, or open studiestimer.com in any browser.
2. Press start. No account is needed to run the timer.
3. Sign in when you want the session saved — that is what turns on streaks, history, groups and buddies.
4. Add a label for what you are studying, so the stats mean something later.
5. Pair with a friend as a Study Buddy, or start a group for your whole class.

Frequently asked questions

Is the StudiesTimer app free?

Yes. The timer, streaks, study groups, study buddies and core stats cost nothing, and you can use the timer without an account at all. Premium is optional and removes ads while raising the limits.

Is StudiesTimer a good Forest alternative?

If what you want is the tracking, the study groups and the statistics, then yes — that is what StudiesTimer is built around, and it is free. Forest is a phone-blocking app with a tree; StudiesTimer is a study record with people in it. If you specifically want tree-planting and app blocking, Forest does that and StudiesTimer does not try to.

What makes it better than other study timer apps?

Four things: statistics deep enough to change your revision plan, an interface clean enough to leave open for hours, real study groups with live presence and chat, and one-to-one study duos that share a streak only advancing when both people study. Most focus apps do one of those. We do not know of another that does all four.

Can I study with friends in the app?

Yes, in two ways. A study group is for a class or a friend group — live presence, chat and a shared leaderboard. A Study Buddy is one person and a streak you both have to keep alive.

Is there a StudiesTimer app for iPhone?

Yes — the iOS app covers iPhone and iPad. The panel at the top of this page shows exactly where it is in the App Store right now, and the QR code takes you straight there.

Is there a StudiesTimer app for Android?

The Android app runs on Android phones and tablets. Check the Google Play side of the panel above for its current status — the two stores move on separate timetables, so one can be live while the other is still coming.

Does it sync with the website?

Yes. It is one account and one set of data. A session started on your phone shows up in your web study tracker and counts toward the same streak, and the other way round.

Does it work offline?

The timer keeps running without a connection and the session is saved when you are back online. Groups, chat and leaderboards need a connection, since they are about other people.

Can I use it without installing anything?

Yes. Everything works in a browser at studiestimer.com — try the Pomodoro timer or the study timer right now, and install the app later if you want it on your Home Screen.

Keep reading

• Pomodoro timer — 25/5 sessions with automatic breaks
• Study timer — open-ended sessions with subject labels
• Focus timer — a plain, distraction-free countdown
• Study groups — study with friends and see who is online
• Study buddy — one friend, one shared streak
• Leaderboard — where you sit against everyone else
• Habits and study tracking — the long view of your term
• The blog — study methods, revision timetables and what the research actually says