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Email timers

A countdown image for marketing emails, drawn when the email is opened. How to get the snippet, what it shows after the deadline, and why you unpublish rather than delete.

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Category
Timer guides
Updated
26 September 2026
Applies to
TreStack Timer, Growth and Professional

How it works

Email apps do not run scripts, so an email timer is an animated GIF image. Each time the email is opened, the app draws 60 one second frames counting down from the time left at that moment, and the image plays once and stops on its last frame. Opening the email again shows the current time.

Images are drawn once a minute per timer and reused within that minute. Some email apps show only the first frame of an animated image. The first frame is the full timer at the moment of opening, so the time is still right, it just does not tick.

Getting the snippet

An email timer has a Code tab where other timers have Placement. After you publish, the tab shows an HTML image snippet with a Copy button. Paste it into Shopify Email, Klaviyo, or any email tool that accepts HTML, in a custom HTML or code block. The snippet is one image tag whose address is timer.trestack.app/email/ followed by the timer ID.

The address holds only the timer ID. There are no cookies and no identifier per recipient, so the image cannot tell who opened the email.

After the deadline, and after you are done with it

At zero the image shows 00:00:00:00, or a message of yours, at the same size, so the layout of the email does not jump. Unpublishing shows an ended image too.

Deleting an email timer breaks the image in every email already sent with it, and the app warns you before it does. If a campaign is finished, unpublish the timer instead of deleting it.

Adding a timer to an email, in four steps.

In order. Each step assumes the one before it is finished, so skipping one is how the last step fails for a reason that looks unrelated.

  1. Step one

    Create an email timer

    It always counts to a date, in your shop timezone.

  2. Step two

    Design and preview

    The editor preview is the real image, redrawn as you change the form.

  3. Step three

    Publish and copy the snippet

    Code tab, Copy. Paste it into a custom HTML block in your email tool.

  4. Step four

    Send yourself a test

    Open it on a phone and on a computer. Open it again a minute later and the time has moved.

Settings reference

The controls this page touches, with what each one does and the default the app ships where there is one.

End date
Always a date and time, one day out by default, in your shop timezone.
Once it ends
Show 00:00:00:00, which is the default, or show a message. Both keep the image the same size.
Fonts
Chosen from the list of fonts the app draws email images with on its server.
Snippet
One HTML image tag, shown in the Code tab after publishing, with a Copy button.
Refresh
Drawn once a minute per timer. Every open inside that minute gets the same image.
Deleting
Breaks the image in emails already sent. Unpublish instead when a campaign ends.

If this does not work

The failures most likely on this procedure, with the check that resolves each one. If none of them fit, we would rather have the store URL than a guess.

Send us the store URL
The image is broken in an email

Either the timer was deleted, which cannot be undone for emails already sent, or the email tool changed the snippet when you pasted it. Paste it again into a custom HTML block rather than a text block.

The countdown does not move

Some email apps show only the first frame of an animated image. The time shown is still the time left when the email was opened. Test in a second email app to confirm.

The time shown looks a little behind

The image is redrawn once a minute, and some email apps keep their own copy of images for a while. Reopen the email a few minutes later to see a fresh one.

Keep reading

TreStack Timer has 4 pages. The rest of the docs index is one click away.