How to run a stage timer on a Mac
Nobody plans to run over. They just do — unless there's a big, honest clock they can see from the stage. Here's every sensible way to run one from a Mac, including the free app we built for our own shows.
01 /The brief
What a show timer actually needs
A conference day dies by a thousand small overruns. Ninety seconds here, four minutes there, and by mid-afternoon the coffee break has gone and the closing keynote is playing to a room checking train times. The fix has been the same for decades: a timer the speaker can actually see, run by someone who can change it without breaking the show. This guide is for event techs, stage managers, church production teams and conference AV crews with a Mac at the desk — and it covers the options honestly, including the ones that aren't ours.
- 01
Readable from the stage
Big, high-contrast digits on a screen the speaker actually looks at — a confidence monitor, not a laptop on the desk.
- 02
Overtime that counts up
Zero isn't the end of the story. The clock should go red and climb, so everyone knows exactly how far over the session is running.
- 03
Messages to the speaker
"Wrap up." "Q&A next." "Your mic is off." A show timer is half timer, half quiet conversation with the stage.
- 04
An output that can't be killed
It must survive a stray trackpad gesture, a notification, an app switch. If one swipe can replace the clock with your desktop, it isn't a show timer.
- 05
Remote control
The person running the clock is rarely sat at the machine driving the screen. Phone, desk or cue system — control has to travel.
- 06
Warning colours
Speakers glance; they don't read. Amber then red does more than any number — as long as the thresholds fit the slot.
Measure the usual stand-ins against that list and they fall over quickly. Keynote's presenter clock lives on the presenter display, tied to one deck on one laptop — it vanishes at every speaker changeover. A phone timer is unreadable past the second row and auto-locks mid-talk. A YouTube countdown is a fixed-length video: you can't add a minute, you can't message the speaker, and you're one buffering wheel away from a frozen clock. And anything running as an ordinary window on a Mac can be flicked off screen by a single Mission Control gesture.
02 /Route one
Browser-based timers: fine, with discipline
The obvious modern answer is a browser-based timer such as Stagetimer — and used properly, they're decent.
They all follow the same shape. You create a timer room and get two links: a controller page and a viewer page. On the Mac feeding the stage display, open the viewer link, move the window onto that display and take it full screen. Then drive it from the controller link on anything with internet — laptop, tablet, phone. That reach is the real strength: a producer at home can watch the same clock as the stage.
The caveats are just as real. You're hanging a show-critical display off the venue's internet connection, which is a bold thing to do in a basement conference room. And a browser is a browser: the tab must never reload, notifications must be off, the cursor must be parked out of shot and the machine must not sleep. On macOS a full-screen browser lives in its own Space, so one three-finger swipe puts your desktop on the confidence monitor. None of this is fatal — it's discipline you have to hold for the whole show. And expect the show-grade features to sit on the paid tiers.
03 /Route two
Dedicated hardware: bombproof, at a price
The traditional answer is a purpose-built speaker-timer system — a hardware console driving LED digit displays and a signal light at the lectern. DSan's Limitimer is the long-standing example, and a familiar sight at conference lecterns.
The case for hardware is simple: no operating system, no updates, no network, no browser. Power it and it works, for a decade. Presenters recognise the green–amber–red lectern light without being told, and there's nothing on it to misconfigure five minutes before doors.
The case against is equally simple. It costs serious money for what it does — hundreds of pounds before you've added displays — and it does exactly one job. Most systems have no message overlay beyond the fixed lights, no output you can feed to a stream or a vision mixer, and it's another box and cable run in the flightcase. For a fixed install or a corporate stock room it's still a defensible choice; for a freelancer's kit it's a hard spend.
04 /Route three
Downstage: the free Mac app built for the job
Downstage is the stage timer we built at HALF GREY BEAR for our own shows, and it's free. It runs on any Mac on macOS 13 or later — Apple silicon or Intel — as a 6 MB signed and notarised download, no account required.
It's designed around the failure modes above. The audience output sits at screen-saver window level and is joined to every Space, so Mission Control, Exposé and space-switching can't pull it off screen — the swipe that kills a browser timer does nothing. Overtime counts up past zero in red. Warning colours go amber at five minutes and red at one, both thresholds configurable. There's a big auto-fitting message overlay for talking to the speaker, an instant blackout, and a one-second flash when you need the room.
Control comes from the app itself, a dependency-free web remote on any phone, native Stream Deck support, or a single UDP command from QLab or whatever runs your show. And a running order is a proper cue list: stepping to the next cue arms it rather than starting it — nothing runs until you say go — though cues can follow on automatically when you want a block to run itself.
Setting up a typical two-display conference rig
- Step 1 · Rig
- Connect the confidence monitor — the screen on the back wall or the downstage edge that the speaker looks at — to the Mac as a second display. In System Settings → Displays, make sure it's extended, not mirrored.
- Step 2 · Output
- In Downstage, send the output to that display. It takes the whole screen, above everything, on every Space. Try to swipe it away — you can't.
- Step 3 · Time
- Quick-set 5, 10, 20, 30 or 60 minutes, and check the warning thresholds fit the slot — amber at five, red at one is right for most sessions.
- Step 4 · Remote
- Open the web remote on the stage manager's phone — any browser on the same network, nothing to install. Or put start, stop and messages on Stream Deck keys at the desk.
- Step 5 · Run it
- Add or drop a minute live without stopping the clock. At zero the display goes red and counts up. Send "wrap up" when the chair signals; blackout or flash if you need to.
Feeding a vision mixer or a stream? Skip the cable entirely. Switch on NDI output and Downstage publishes the timer as an NDI source on your network — the vision mixer, OBS or Resolume takes it like any other feed, keyed into the confidence feed, a multiview or the stream itself. The NDI runtime is bundled — nothing else to install — and because the source is the network, no second display is needed at all: a MacBook alone at the desk can feed the timer to the entire system. When every output on the machine is already spoken for, that earns its keep.
The full feature list, screenshots, the UDP command reference and the user guide are on the Downstage page.
05 /Choosing
Which should you use?
All three routes work. Which one, honestly, depends on what's at the desk.
| Route | Pick it when | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Browser timer | Mixed platforms, remote producers watching in, one-off meetings. | Needs the internet to behave and browser discipline held all day; the show-grade features are usually paid. |
| Hardware speaker timer | Fixed installs and conference stock with budget behind it. | Costs real money, does exactly one job, and can't feed a stream. |
| Downstage | There's a Mac at the desk — which, on our shows, there usually is. | macOS only. |
Our bias is obvious but reasoned: a free app that needs no internet, survives a stray gesture and outputs NDI answers the browser timers' weaknesses and the hardware's price in one move. Desk machine is Windows? Use a browser timer and hold the discipline. Client wants the traditional lectern light? Hire the hardware. Everything else, we run Downstage.
06 /FAQ
Questions we actually get
What should happen when a speaker runs over time?
Do I need a second display to get the timer into a vision mixer or stream?
Can I control the timer from my phone?
Is Downstage actually free?
Can't I just use Keynote's presenter clock?
07 /Get the app
Get Downstage
Free, signed and notarised, straight from this site — no account, no trial, NDI included. Homebrew user? brew install --cask halfgreybear/tap/downstage does the same job.
Free · notarised & signed · checks for updates in-app.
Rigging the screens for the same show? Read our guide to test patterns for projectors and LED walls. And if the show runs on Raspberry Pis, back up the SD cards before load-in.