Helpful countdowns and stopwatches are back in Google Search. Both features have been inaccessible for several weeks, but Danny Sullivan, Google’s public search liaison, announced the return of the countdown feature in a tweet Wednesday.
To use the countdown function, users just need to search for “set a timer for [the time you want]” in Google, and a small countdown window will automatically appear at the top of the search results. At this time, the user can also adjust the countdown time. The stopwatch function is also provided in this small window, and users can click the “STOPWATCH” tab on the right to access it.
Google first introduced countdown and stopwatch features in search results in 2013, but users discovered in mid-July that Google had removed both features. On August 1st, Sullivan confirmed that the delisting was due to a “problem”, and the team hoped to fix it as soon as possible to get it back online.