Stops after a minute

Why does my email countdown timer stop after a minute?

Q: Why does my email countdown timer stop after a minute?

Short answer: an email timer is an animated GIF generated when the email is opened, and it can only hold so many frames. A tikio timer plays 60 one-second frames, then holds on the last one. Reopening the email fetches a new image with the current time. Looping the animation instead would jump the clock backwards and show a wrong time.

In short

An email timer is an animated GIF generated when the email is opened, and it can only hold so many frames. A tikio timer plays 60 one-second frames, then holds on the last one. Reopening the email fetches a new image with the current time. Looping the animation instead would jump the clock backwards and show a wrong time.

An email timer is a short film, not a clock

Email clients do not run JavaScript, so nothing inside the inbox can keep counting. The server renders a GIF at the moment of opening: frame one is the time left now, frame two is one second less, and so on. However long the animation is, it has an end — and at that end the GIF stops.

Why not just loop it?

A loop would restart at frame one — the time left when the email was opened. A reader who has been looking at the email for a minute would suddenly see the clock jump back by a minute, then count down the same stretch again. That is a timer showing the wrong time, which is worse than one that stops. So a tikio GIF plays once and holds its last frame.

Why not a longer animation?

Every extra frame makes each GIF bigger and slower to generate, for every open of every email. Very few people keep an email open for more than a minute, and those who come back later get a fresh render anyway. Sixty seconds is the balance between a timer that visibly ticks and one that loads quickly.

What readers see in practice

On open, the digits tick for a minute. If the reader switches away and comes back to the same open email, many clients keep showing the last frame; reopening the email, or scrolling it back into view in some clients, loads a fresh image with the current time. Clients that do not animate at all, such as classic Outlook for Windows, show the first frame — which is still the correct time at open.

Last updated: 2026-09-30.

FAQ

Questions, answered

Is my timer broken if it stopped?

No. Close and reopen the email: if the time has moved on, the timer is working as designed.

Do other timer services loop?

Some loop a short animation, which makes the clock jump back each cycle. Whichever service you use, test by leaving the email open for two minutes and watching what happens.

Does the website version stop too?

No. A website embed is live HTML and keeps counting every second for as long as the page is open.

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