Group projects get messy when half the team is in another country. This tool takes the time zones of everyone in your group and works out the hours when all of you are awake and in the same window, so you stop guessing and stop messaging people at 2am to ask if they are free.
It is built for student groups: four people in three countries trying to find one hour a week for a call, or a group assignment where the person building the slides is on the other side of the world from the person running the numbers.
Honest detail: it checks the day one whole hour at a time. If your group needs a 90 minute call starting at half past, the tool points at the closest whole hour and you shift the invite yourself afterwards.
Find the best meeting time for your group across multiple time zones. Add members and their time zones to see overlapping hours.
How it works
Every member needs a name and a time zone from the dropdown, which holds 23 zones from Pacific/Midway through to Pacific/Auckland. Alongside that you set three numbers: meeting length in minutes (60 by default), the earliest local hour anyone starts (9 by default) and the latest local hour anyone finishes (17 by default). It wants at least two members with a zone picked, otherwise it stops and says so.
Press Calculate and it walks every whole hour of the day in UTC. For each hour it converts that moment into each member’s local clock and asks one question: is this person’s local time at or after their start hour, and early enough that the full meeting still fits before their end hour? If everybody passes, the hour becomes a slot.
What comes back is a list headed “Best Meeting Times”, showing the UTC hour and then each person’s local start time with their zone name. When nothing passes it says so and tells you to widen the window, which is the real answer when Auckland and New York are in the same group.
A worked example
Three members: one in America/New_York, one in Europe/London, one in Europe/Berlin. Meeting length 60 minutes, window 9 to 17 for everybody. It returns exactly two slots. At 14:00 UTC the local starts are 9:00 in New York, 14:00 in London and 15:00 in Berlin. At 15:00 UTC they are 10:00, 15:00 and 16:00. Both land inside a normal working day for all three people, so you send one of those and move on.
Now swap Berlin for Asia/Kolkata and keep the same 9 to 17 window: zero slots. New York’s 9 to 5 and Kolkata’s 9 to 5 barely touch once the offset is applied, and the tool tells you to widen the range. Push the window out to 7 to 21 and four slots appear, at 12:00, 13:00, 14:00 and 15:00 UTC, which is 7am to 10am in New York and 5:30pm to 8:30pm in Kolkata. Somebody flexes either early or late, and that is usually how these groups actually work.
Where it will catch you out
The offsets are read from a fixed date in early January, so daylight saving is whatever January looks like in each zone. For a meeting in July, expect the northern hemisphere times to come out an hour early and double check the invite before you send it. That one hour is the difference between a person joining on time and a person joining halfway through.
It also has no idea about anyone’s timetable. The 9 to 17 numbers are your claim about when people are free, not something it reads off a calendar, so put in the hours you actually have and not the hours you wish you had. And because it steps in whole hours, a tight group of five across six zones can easily come back empty. That is not a broken result, it just means nobody shares a window and somebody needs to move.
Other tools
- Time zone converter — check what time it is for one person before you write the message
- Multi zone meeting planner — same problem, more zones and a wider look at the day
- Proctored exam time — for when the exam window is fixed and only your clock is flexible
Frequently asked questions
What do I do when it finds no overlapping time?
Widen the window first, since 9 to 17 is only a starting guess. If it still comes back empty, shorten the meeting or accept that somebody starts early or stays late. The tool says the same thing: try a wider time range.
How many members can I add?
Any number above two, as long as each one has a time zone selected. Rows without a zone are skipped rather than counted, so a blank row will not quietly spoil the result. Three or four members is where it starts earning its keep.
Does it know about daylight saving time?
It uses the rules attached to a fixed January date, so January offsets are right and summer ones can be an hour out for the northern hemisphere. Check the first slot against a world clock when your meeting is months away.
Can I set hours outside nine to five?
Yes, both hour fields are yours to change. A group spread across Asia and Canada often works better with a window like 7 to 21 than with a standard office day, because one side is starting while the other is finishing.
Does it check anyone’s calendar?
No. It only knows the time zones you gave it and the window you set, so treat the output as the hours where nobody is asleep rather than proof that everyone is free. Send the invite and let people decline.