How to use Timehint: side panel, timeline and Gmail

This guide explains how to use Timehint, the Chrome extension that shows the local time of the people you work with, in a side panel and in Gmail. It covers Timehint 5.0 from install to troubleshooting, using the names you'll see on screen. If something isn't working, go straight to Troubleshooting.

How to use Timehint: the short version

1. Join the waitlist. Timehint isn't on the Chrome Web Store yet. See Install Timehint.
2. Confirm your time zone when the side panel asks "Where are you based?"
3. Save the people you work with, in the side panel or with Add timezone in Gmail.
4. Plan with Today in your cast and Overlap windows.
5. Read and write in their time with the sender chip and Use their time.

Before you start

• Chrome or Brave on desktop, version 114 or later. Other browsers and mobile devices aren't supported in this build.
• Gmail or Google Calendar on the web, at mail.google.com or calendar.google.com, for the in-page features. The side panel works without them.
• No account needed. Timehint is free during early access. A free account is optional; it backs up your contacts and syncs them across your browsers.

Install Timehint

Timehint isn't on the Chrome Web Store yet, so every Install extension on Chrome button on this site opens the waitlist. Leave your address there and we'll write when installation opens; an early-access link may come first, before the public launch. We don't email you about anything else, and you can request deletion of your address at any time through the Contact page.

Once Timehint is installed:

1. Pin the icon. Open Chrome's Extensions menu (the puzzle-piece icon) and select the pin next to Timehint.
2. Click the icon. The side panel opens beside the page you're on.
3. Let Gmail reload. Gmail tabs that were already open reload once during install, so Timehint can work in them.

Close the panel with the × in its header.

First run: "Where are you based?"

The first time you open the side panel, Timehint asks Where are you based? Every time it converts lands in your time zone, so it's worth confirming once.

The card shows the zone Detected on this device. It comes from your computer's clock settings, so Timehint doesn't ask for location access. If it's right, click the button that names the city, such as Use Kolkata. If not, type in Search a city or timezone, pick a result, then click the button.

Zones are labeled with a reference city, so in Bengaluru you'll see Kolkata. Both use India Standard Time.

To change your time zone later, click the city next to Now at the top of the panel, or choose Change beside Your timezone in Settings. Type a city, an abbreviation or a zone name.

The side panel

The side panel holds your cast: the people and places you've saved, each with a live local time.

• Header: Add contact (the person icon), Settings (the gear) and Close panel (×).
• Clock: "Now", your city and today's date. While you preview another time, "Now" reads "Preview".
• Search contacts or a city: filters your list and offers places to add.
• Rows: each shows a name, city, offset such as "9½ h behind", a time-of-day label (Early morning, Morning, Afternoon, Evening or Late night), and the local time with the zone's abbreviation or GMT offset.

Hover over a row for three actions:

• Pin to top keeps the row first. Sort by in Settings orders the rest by Manual, Time or Name.
• Hide takes the row out of the list without deleting it. A note such as "1 hidden" appears in the search box; search for the row and choose Show to bring it back.
• Remove deletes the row. For a person, that deletes the saved contact. Undo appears for a few seconds.

For what each row shows and how the panel differs from a world clock, read everyone's local time in one side panel.

Add people

Save a person once to see their local time in the panel and on their messages in Gmail.

1. Click Add contact (the person icon). On an empty panel, Add a person opens the same form.
2. Enter a Name and the Email address they write from. The address is how Timehint recognizes their messages.
3. In Timezone, type a city ("Tokyo"), an abbreviation ("JST"), a zone name ("Asia/Tokyo") or a full name ("India Standard Time"). A hint shows the match and the time there, such as "Mumbai · 3:11 PM".
4. Optionally tick Star: keep at the top of the list, then click Add contact.

If something needs fixing, the form says so, for example "That email address doesn't look right."

Abbreviations with several meanings use a default: IST is India and CST is US Central. Type a city or a full name, such as "Irish Standard Time", to be exact. The guide to ambiguous abbreviations explains why.

You can also save people from Gmail with Add timezone.

Add places

Places are cities or time zones with no email address, such as a client's head office.

1. Click Search contacts or a city, or press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows) while you're in the panel.
2. Type part of a name, such as "tok". New places appear under Add a place, with their local time and offset from you.
3. Click Add, or use ↑ and ↓ then Return. Esc closes the results.

Places you've already saved show Added. Search covers hundreds of cities and every time zone your browser knows, so places like Tashkent are there too. An empty panel also offers one-click city buttons under Or start with a place.

Today in your cast

Today in your cast puts your day beside everyone else's, so you can see what any hour means for them.

• The axis runs across your day, midnight to midnight in your time zone.
• The bands start with You, then one per person and place, split into Work, Fringe and Off on that person's local clock. Work is your Working hours setting, Fringe is the two hours before the start and the three hours after the end, and the rest is Off.
• The vertical line is the current time. Drag it to preview another hour: your list follows, Live changes to Paused, and Reset to now appears.
• Day buttons (Today, Tomorrow, a date, and Pick another date) show any day up to two weeks ahead, using that day's offsets. Past days aren't offered.
• People and Places choose which bands appear. One of them stays on.

Search filters your list, not the chart. To hide the chart, turn off Cast timeline in Settings.

Overlap windows

Overlap windows list the best times on the selected day to meet: stretches where at least two members of your cast, counting you, are within working hours.

Each window shows a time range in your time zone, who's in working hours ("Everyone in your cast" or, say, "3 of 4 in working hours") and its length. Up to three appear, and the first is marked Best. Best isn't simply the most people: Timehint weighs how much of your cast can make it (half the score), how long the window lasts, up to three hours (a quarter), and how reasonable the hour is within your working day (a quarter).

For example, you're in Bengaluru, Lukas is in Berlin, Kenji is in Tokyo and Sarah is in New York, all working 9:00 AM–6:00 PM. On Tuesday, September 15, 2026, Timehint lists:

Sarah isn't in any of them, because her 9:00 AM is 6:30 PM for you. Click a window to preview it on the timeline, and Reset to now to return. When nothing lines up, you'll see "No shared working time on this day." Hidden rows aren't counted.

For choosing a fair time, read how to schedule meetings across time zones.

For how the best window is scored and what to do when there isn't one, read find meeting times across time zones.

Working hours

Set Your working day under Working hours in Settings, in whole hours. The default is 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

• It applies to everyone. There are no per-person hours. Timehint applies the same hours to each member of your cast, on their own local clock.
• It draws the timeline. Work is your working day, Fringe is the two hours before it starts and the three hours after it ends, and the rest is Off. Change the setting and the timeline redraws right away.
• It decides which Overlap windows count, and the Best overlap time shown under the clock.
• Gmail colors don't use it. Converted times in Gmail use a fixed 9:00 AM–6:00 PM day.

The sender chip in Gmail

When someone you've saved emails you, Timehint adds one chip to the "to me" line under their name.

Say you're in London and open a message from Kenji, saved with Tokyo's time zone, at 8:35 AM on Tuesday, September 15, 2026. He sent it at 5:30 PM on Monday, his time. His chip reads 4:35 PM there · Sent at 5:30 PM. If a sender's clock matches yours, it reads Same timezone as you. Senders you haven't saved get Add timezone instead: Timehint doesn't guess a stranger's time zone.

Hover over the chip for a card showing:

• their initials, name and city with the zone's abbreviation, and a pill for how far ahead or behind you they are, such as 8h ahead
• their time now, with a pill for the part of their day (Morning, Afternoon, Late night and so on)
• when they sent it, side by side: Sent · their time and Sent · your time
• Change timezone, which corrects their zone everywhere, including the side panel

The × that appears while you hover hides the chip on that message only. The chip follows 24-hour time, and Show when a message was sent in Settings turns it off. For other methods, read how to see someone's local time in Gmail.

For the hover card, clock changes and the chip's limits, read show a sender's local time in Gmail.

Save a sender's time zone with Add timezone

Senders you haven't saved get an Add timezone chip, with Add and Dismiss.

1. Click Add. The Add timezone dialog opens with the sender's address and name.
2. Check the Timezone. If Timehint found a clue, that zone is preselected with a note, such as: Suggested from "2 pm Indonesia time" in their message. Please confirm.
3. Click Add contact. The chip switches to their local time, and they appear in your side panel.

Timehint looks for clues in the open message, then the rest of the conversation:

• a location line in the signature, such as "Based in Singapore" or "Writing from Tokyo"
• a phone number's country code, such as +44, which is stronger when it matches a city in a pipe-separated signature line; a +1 number isn't used
• a time zone they wrote, such as "by 2 pm Indonesia time", used only when the message names exactly one time zone other than yours

You always confirm the zone, nothing is saved until you click, and Timehint doesn't guess from email domains. With no clue, the list starts on your own computer's time zone, so pick theirs before saving. Zones are listed by region and city, such as Asia/Tokyo.

Dismiss hides the offer for that sender for 30 days. Offer to save a sender's timezone in Settings turns it off everywhere.

For every clue Timehint reads and what it refuses to guess, read save a contact's time zone in Gmail.

Convert times in emails you receive

When a message you receive mentions a time with a time zone, Timehint adds your time beside it. If Sarah writes "Call at 5pm EST" in September and you're in Bengaluru, you'll see: Call at 5pm EST (2:30 AM IST +1 day). Your time is labeled with your zone's abbreviation or GMT offset.

• Color reflects your hour: green from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, amber from 7:00 to 9:00 AM and 6:00 to 9:00 PM, red overnight.
• +1 day or -1 day means the time falls on a different date for you.
• Hover for context, such as whether 5 PM in EST falls in business hours.
• 24-hour times stay 24-hour: "17:00 CET" becomes "(20:30 IST)".

Timehint recognizes forms like "5pm IST", "1700 hrs IST", "noon in Singapore", "3pm Pacific Time" and "10am UTC+5:30", and applies daylight saving time for the message's date. Timehint reads EST, CST and PST as the region's local time, so "5pm EST" in summer is treated as 5 pm Eastern Time (EDT, UTC−4), the way most people mean it, rather than as literal UTC−5. Times without a zone ("let's meet at 5"), times already in your zone, and emails you're writing aren't converted. There's no switch for this in the current version.

Write times in their time zone with Use their time

When you write to a saved contact in another time zone and type a time in yours, Timehint offers theirs.

1. Write to a contact saved with a time zone, such as Kenji in Tokyo.
2. Type a time with your zone: "Can we meet at 5pm IST tomorrow?"
3. A bar appears: 5pm IST is 8:30pm JST for Kenji.
4. Click Use their time to replace "5pm IST" with "8:30pm JST", or click × to close the bar.

• Nothing changes until you click.
• It offers the last time you typed, and checks again as you type, so a closed bar can return.
• The label is the zone's abbreviation or GMT offset, such as JST or GMT+9.
• Midnight is flagged ("1:30am JST next day"), but only the time is replaced, so update words like "tomorrow" yourself.
• It uses today's offsets, so check times for dates after a clock change.

It stays quiet when the recipient isn't saved with a time zone, when your saved recipients are in different time zones, when the time you typed has no zone, or when it's already theirs. For writing times clearly by hand, read how to write time zones in an email.

For what Use their time changes and what it leaves alone, read convert time zones while writing an email.

When you travel

If your computer's clock moves to another time zone, Timehint asks before changing anything, with a card such as "Your computer's clock is on Tokyo time".

• Switch to the new city to convert into it from now on.
• Keep your city to leave things as they are. Timehint won't ask about that zone again for 30 days.
• × closes the card without choosing. Timehint stays quiet for 7 days.

It asks only when the time zone you chose, at first run, in Settings or by switching, differs from your computer's clock. Zones that share an offset, such as Kolkata and Colombo, don't trigger it.

Settings

Open Settings with the gear in the panel header. Changes save immediately, and the Gmail switches apply to open Gmail tabs straight away.

Back up your contacts

Without an account, contacts are stored only in this browser profile, and removing Timehint deletes them. There are two ways to keep them safe:

• Sign in under Account in Settings. The free account backs up your contacts, places and a few settings, and syncs them to every browser where you sign in. Signing out stops syncing and leaves the copy in this browser.
• Download beside Download your contacts saves them as a JSON file named with the date, such as timehint-contacts-2026-10-16.json. It holds people, not places. Keep it safe: this version can't import the file.

Your data

• No account needed. Without one, your saved contacts stay on this device. With the optional free account, your contacts, places and a few settings also sync to it; the privacy policy lists exactly what.
• Settings and saved places live in Chrome's storage sync, and Chrome may copy them to your other signed-in browsers.
• Your email isn't sent anywhere. Timehint reads times and sender details in the messages you open, inside your browser, and never uploads the text of your emails.
• Gmail and Google Calendar only. Timehint asks for storage and side panel permissions, plus identity when it offers Continue with Google (it only opens Google's sign-in window), and access to mail.google.com and calendar.google.com. Those are the only websites it asks to access.

More in About Timehint and the privacy policy.

Troubleshooting

The side panel doesn't open

Use Chrome or Brave on desktop, version 114 or later. Pin the Timehint icon from the Extensions menu and click it. If nothing happens, restart the browser.

There's no chip on a message

• Open the conversation and expand the message. Chips attach to open messages, not the inbox list.
• A local time needs the sender's address to match a contact saved with a time zone. If they write from a second address, save that one too.
• Check both switches under Gmail in Settings, then reload the Gmail tab.
• If you dismissed the sender in the last 30 days, Add timezone stays hidden.

"Add timezone" appears on newsletters or my own replies

It's offered for any address you haven't saved, including automated senders and, in a conversation, messages you sent. Dismiss hides it for that address for 30 days.

A sender shows "Same timezone as you", but they're elsewhere

The chip compares clocks, not places: someone in Colombo really is on your time in Bengaluru. If the person is on a different clock, they were probably saved while the Timezone list was still on your own zone. Hover over the chip, choose Change timezone and pick theirs.

The suggested time zone is wrong

A suggestion is only a clue. Signatures go out of date, and a time zone in an email may belong to someone else. Pick the right zone before you click Add contact, or fix it later with Change timezone.

An abbreviation was read as the wrong place

Timehint reads IST as India Standard Time, CST as US Central Time, BST as British Summer Time and GST as Gulf Standard Time, with no setting to change them. Full names are exact: "3pm Irish Standard Time" converts from Dublin and "3pm China Standard Time" from Shanghai.

Times are an hour off around a clock change

In 2026 the UK and EU turn their clocks back on October 25 and the US on November 1, so for that week New York is four hours behind London instead of five (GOV.UK, NIST). The panel, sender chip and converted times follow each zone's rules for the date. Two things don't: Use their time uses today's offsets, and a contact's zone label can show a standard-time abbreviation, such as EST, in summer even though the time is correct.

"Sent at" shows the current time on an older message

Timehint reads the send time from the date Gmail shows on the message. If it can't read that date, it uses the current time. Please report it with your browser version.

Every time is off by the same amount

Your own time zone is probably wrong. Check Your timezone in Settings, and see When you travel.

A contact is missing from the side panel

• Look for a "hidden" note in the search box, then search for their name.
• If a line says someone isn't shown until you set a timezone, click it and add their zone.
• Without an account, contacts belong to one browser profile, so check you're in the same one. With an account, check you're signed in to it.
• After Remove, Undo lasts only a few seconds.

Still stuck?

Contact us. We reply within one business day, and a report with the details in how to write a useful bug report is the quickest to solve.

Frequently asked questions