See a sender's local time on every email they send you

Gmail stamps every message with the time it arrived on your clock. That is the one time zone you never needed. Timehint is a Gmail extension to show a sender's local time instead: for anyone you've saved with a time zone, one small chip on the open message answers two questions at once: what time is it for them right now, and what time was it for them when they wrote this?

What the sender chip shows

Say you work in London and Kenji, a saved contact, works in Tokyo. He sends a message at 5:30 PM his time on Monday, September 14, 2026. Gmail stamps it 9:30 AM, because that's what your clock said. You open it the next morning, Tuesday, at 8:35 AM, and the chip on the "to me" line reads:

4:35 PM there · Sent at 5:30 PM

You can read the situation at a glance. He wrote at the end of his Monday, and it's late afternoon on his Tuesday now. Reply in the next hour and he'll see it before his day ends; leave it until after lunch and he won't.

The chip sits on a line Gmail already draws under the sender's name, so nothing on the page moves: the subject, the message and the buttons stay exactly where you expect them. Only the live "there" value is colored; the sent time stays neutral, because it's history, not a signal.

If the person you've saved shares your offset, the chip reads Same timezone as you rather than repeating your own clock back at you.

What the hover card adds

Hold your pointer over the chip and a card opens with the detail behind the two numbers, in three layers:

• Who and where: the contact's initials in the same colour as in the side panel, their name, their city with the zone's abbreviation (such as Tokyo · JST), and a pill saying how far ahead or behind you they are, such as 8h ahead;
• Their time now, in large type, with a pill for the part of their day: Early morning, Morning, Afternoon, Evening or Late night;
• When they sent it, side by side: Sent · their time and Sent · your time, each with the day;
• Change timezone, which corrects the contact's zone everywhere, including in the side panel.

The card works the times out again each time it opens, so "their time now" is always current.

The "Your time" line is the one that settles arguments. It turns "he replied at some point last night" into a specific moment on your own clock, which is what you need when you're reconstructing who was waiting for whom.

Two numbers, two decisions

The two halves of the chip answer different questions, and it's worth separating them.

Their time now decides what you do next. If it's 4:35 PM for Kenji, a question you send in the next twenty minutes still gets an answer today. If it's 11:40 PM, the same question waits until morning whatever you do, so it can go out later with more detail in it.

Their time when they wrote decides how you read the message. Lukas in Berlin sending at 7:30 PM his time (1:30 PM on your New York clock) wrote at the end of his day, not in the middle of it. A short reply from him after that hour isn't curt; it's late. The same message stamped 1:30 PM tells you nothing of the kind.

How the chip behaves

Five rules keep it out of your way:

• Only people you've saved with a time zone get a chip. Timehint never guesses a stranger's zone. Senders you haven't saved get an Add timezone prompt instead.
• It attaches to open messages, not to the inbox list. Expand a message in a conversation and the chip appears on it.
• The × hides the chip for that message only. It doesn't delete the contact or change anything else.
• It follows your clock format. Turn on 24-hour time in Settings and the chip switches with everything else.
• It has an off switch. Show when a message was sent, under Gmail in Settings, turns the chip off in every open Gmail tab.

A week when the usual gap is wrong

The reason to read a sender's time from their zone, rather than from an offset you memorized, is that offsets move. Countries change their clocks on different weekends, and for a week or two each year the familiar gap is simply wrong.

Take a colleague in New York writing to you in London at 9:00 AM her time:

Nothing changed in New York. The UK left summer time on October 25 and the US doesn't change until November 1, so for that week the two cities are four hours apart instead of five. The chip resolves each contact's zone on the date in question, so it follows both changes without a setting and without you noticing. If you want the whole story of that week, read what the 2026 clock changes do to your meetings.

Limits worth knowing

• Gmail on the web, in Chrome or Brave on desktop, version 114 or later. The chip doesn't appear in the Gmail mobile app or in desktop mail clients.
• It matches on the email address. A colleague who writes from a second address needs that address saved too, or their messages arrive without a chip.
• "Same timezone as you" compares clocks, not places. Someone in Colombo really is on the same clock as someone in Bengaluru. If the label surprises you, the contact was probably saved while the time zone field still showed your own zone; use Change timezone to fix it.
• The send time comes from the date Gmail displays on the message. On the rare message where that date can't be read, Timehint falls back to the current time. If you see that, tell us.
• A zone label can lag the season. A contact saved with a standard-time abbreviation may still be labeled EST in summer, even though the time shown is correct for the date.

More diagnostics are in troubleshooting.

Setting it up

1. Open the side panel from the Timehint toolbar icon and add the people you email most, each with a name, an email address and a time zone.
2. Or wait for their next message and use the Add timezone prompt, which often has the zone ready for you to confirm.
3. Open one of their messages. The chip is on the "to me" line, under their name.

The step-by-step version, with every setting, is in the guide: the sender chip in Gmail.

Frequently asked questions

Next: save a sender's time zone from their message, or see all Timehint features.