Timer types

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.

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

At a glance

Format: Animated GIF, plays once
Recipient tracking: None
Plan: Growth and above

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.

Create an email timer

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

Design and preview

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

Publish and copy the snippet

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

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

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.

Cart page and cart drawer timers

A per visitor countdown on the cart page and in your theme cart drawer, shown only while the cart has items, with a title that holds the clock where you put it.

Performance notes

What the storefront code weighs, what it loads and from where, one measurement on one theme, and how to measure your own store so the numbers compare.