Set up alerts, colours and sounds

The three alerts

Open Settings and choose the Alerts tab. The alerts are Get ready (30 minutes before by default), Soon (10 minutes) and Starting (1 minute). Change Minutes before for any of them, from 0 to 240, or set it to 0 to turn that alert off. Alerts work the same on the main page and in the pop-out window.

You can see an alert even when the page is behind other windows: the browser tab's icon turns the alert colour, and the tab title shows the countdown and the event's name.

Colours

Each alert has a colour, used for the timer's border, glow, badge and progress bar. The defaults are soft sage, amber and rose so they don't dominate the screen. Pick any colour and it previews straight away; Reset alerts to defaults puts the minutes, colours and sounds back.

Sounds and volume

Play a sound when each alert starts is on by default at 20% volume. Each alert can use a different sound: Soft chime, Bell, Glass ping, Ding, Marimba, Tri-tone, Pop, Rising sweep, Gentle pulse, Digital beep, Alarm, or Silent. Use the play button beside each one to test it. On Windows you can also pick Windows' own sounds, such as its calendar and alarm sounds, when Next Up is opened as a file on your computer; if one isn't on your PC, the soft chime plays instead. Chrome can't play a Mac's own alert sounds, so on a Mac pick a built-in sound or add your own file.

To use your own sound, click the Use your own sound file button next to an alert. Each alert can have its own file: MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC or OGG, up to 1.5 MB.

Chrome keeps a page silent until you click it once. If you see Chrome keeps sound off until you click this page, click Turn sound on.

Flashing

Flash the page during alerts pulses the whole page in the alert colour, with a band of it around the edges of the window so the alert still reads when cards fill the screen or the timer is popped out. Under When I stop an alert, choose what the button on the timer does during an alert:

• Keep the alert colour (just stop the flashing): the button reads Stop flashing, and the alert colour stays.
• Go back to normal colours, like I've dealt with it: the button reads Dismiss alert, and the page goes back to its normal colours. It shows even with flashing off.

Either way, the next alert for the same event still shows as usual.

Fade the page until you need it

Fade the page before the first alert lowers the page's opacity while nothing needs your attention, so it's less distracting beside your work. It returns to full brightness when the first alert starts, or while you point at it. Set how faint it gets with Page opacity before the first alert.

Related guides

Make the timer easier to see in Use timer-only mode, the pop-out, full screen and an app window, and choose which events count in Choose calendars and use the day agenda.