X Shutdown Timer 1.2

X Shutdown Timer turns your PC off for you, at a set time, after a countdown, or once something you are waiting for has finished.

It is a free, 242 KB program for Windows 10 and 11 that needs no installation, has no ads and never connects to the internet.

Start a download or a long video encode, set the timer, and go to bed.

What X Shutdown Timer Actually Does - in Plain Terms

You pick a trigger, which is the moment something should happen, and an action, which is what happens then. The timer runs in the system tray, shows the time left on its icon, and keeps counting after you close the window.

The action can be shut down, restart, sleep, hibernate, sign out, lock or turn off the display. Hibernate has to be enabled in Windows first.

The Safety Features That Stop It Ruining Your Work

A shutdown tool is only useful if it never catches you mid-sentence. X Shutdown Timer has three guards against that.

• A final warning. Before it acts, a warning offers Postpone 10 min, Cancel and Do it now, and in idle mode simply moving the mouse stops it.
• A cancel hotkey. Ctrl+Alt+X cancels the timer from any program, and Ctrl+Alt+S brings the window back from the tray.
• Polite app closing. Apps you list get a normal close request one minute before shutdown, so they can ask to save - force-closing stays off unless you turn it on.

Common Jobs It Handles

Overnight downloads. Start a large file in Free Download Manager or a torrent client such as BitComet, set the Network trigger, and the PC turns off once traffic stops.

Long encodes and renders. For a FFmpeg batch or a Blender render, use the Program trigger on the app doing the work.

HandBrake has its own "when done" option, so it does not need X Shutdown Timer for a single queue.

Falling asleep to a film. Start the film in VLC Media Player or MPC-BE, then pick a tray preset a little longer than the running time.

For Power Users: Command Line and Logs

Every timer can be started from a shortcut, a script or a batch file. The switches are /in for minutes, /at for a clock time, /action, /force to force-close apps, and /tray to start hidden.

For example, X-Shutdown-Timer.exe /in 90 /action sleep /tray puts the PC to sleep in 90 minutes without opening a window. The action names are shutdown, restart, sleep, hibernate, logoff, lock and display.

Every action is written to a daily log, kept for 90 days and viewable in the History window. That answers the morning-after question of whether the PC really did switch itself off, and when.

Before You Run It

There is nothing to install. Download the single file from the X Shutdown Timer download page, put it in any folder or on a USB stick, and run it.

It needs .NET Framework 4, which is already built into Windows 10 and 11, and normally runs without administrator rights. On locked-down work PCs, Task Scheduler may ask for them the first time you save a repeating schedule.

Settings are stored in your AppData folder, and logs sit next to the program or, if that folder is read-only, in %APPDATA%\xcodecpack\shutdowntimer\logs.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

The tell is how often you need it. For a single shutdown, Windows can already do it from the Run box: type shutdown /s /t 3600 to switch off in an hour, and shutdown /a to cancel.

That built-in command has no warning, no idle or download triggers and no log, which is the gap X Shutdown Timer fills.

If you want the opposite, a PC that stays awake through a long job, the Awake tool in Microsoft PowerToys keeps Windows from sleeping. The Other Tools category has more small Windows utilities.

Quick questions

More about the tool and the rest of the family is on the X Shutdown Timer home page at xcodecpack.com.

Download X Shutdown Timer 1.2 and set it before your next overnight download, or tell us how you got on if you have used it before.