Countdown timer in multiple languages, from one timer

A flashtimer timer translates its unit labels, the words under the digits. These are the labels each language uses:

• English: DAYS, HOURS, MINUTES, SECONDS
• French: JOURS, HEURES, MINUTES, SECONDES
• Spanish: DÍAS, HORAS, MINUTOS, SEGUNDOS
• German: TAGE, STUNDEN, MINUTEN, SEKUNDEN
• Italian: GIORNI, ORE, MINUTI, SECONDI
• Portuguese: DIAS, HORAS, MINUTOS, SEGUNDOS
• Dutch: DAGEN, UREN, MINUTEN, SECONDEN

Set a timer's language to Automatic and it picks its labels per reader. The reliable way to do that is your email platform's language field: the URL carries ?lang= followed by the platform's merge tag, and each subscriber's email is sent with their own code, fr, de or es. That value wins over everything else, and it survives Gmail's and Apple's image proxies because it is part of the link.

Without a language merge tag, auto falls back to the language the email client sends with the image request. That works in some desktop and webmail clients, but Gmail and Apple Mail fetch images from their own servers, so most of those opens come out in English. We'd rather tell you that than have you find out from a French customer.

A value we don't support, such as pl, falls back to the reader's client language and then to English. If you send to a language we don't have, you can turn the labels off and show digits only, which read the same everywhere.

A store with a French list runs a 24-hour flash sale. The timer is set to French, so the labels read JOURS, HEURES, MINUTES, SECONDES, and the expiry message says "La vente flash est terminée". The text below it says "Jusqu'à minuit ce soir, heure de Paris". The same design, duplicated with English labels and message, goes to the UK list.

For a single email to readers across Europe, the store sets the timer to auto instead and adds its platform's language field as the language merge tag. Every reader gets labels in their own language from one timer. The expiry message is one text, so keep it short, or use a fallback image (Basic and up) that works in every language. The same setup suits a flash sale countdown email or an international Black Friday campaign.

A countdown is the time left until one instant, so it is the same number in Lisbon, Berlin and New York at any given moment. A sale that ends at midnight in Paris shows a New York reader the hours left until 6pm their time, which is when it really ends for them. You set the deadline once, in the time zone you choose, and nobody has to convert anything.

If you want a deadline at local midnight in each market, send each market its own timer, or use a recurring countdown timer with that market's time zone for repeating cut-offs. Recurring rules take a named zone such as Europe/Paris and follow its daylight saving changes.

Ask for a language when you create a timer with AI, as in "24-hour flash sale in Spanish, bold red", and the labels are set to Spanish. The AI only sets a language when you name one.

Through the REST API and MCP server (Pro and up), a timer's language accepts "auto" or any of the seven codes. Regional codes such as fr-CA are read as their base language.