Browser Bits
Reading Time icon

Reading Time

Estimated read time for any article, blog post, or news story. Instant read time badge with word count — no setup needed.

Works on
Edge
Version
3.0.2
Add to Edge

You open a long post and have no idea whether it is a four-minute read or a thirty-minute one. A small badge in the top corner answers that before you start, counting the words actually on the page against a reading speed you choose.

Reading Time — see the estimated reading time for any article instantly. A small read time badge appears on the page the moment you open a blog post, news story, or long-form article. No clicks, no popups, 100% local — nothing ever leaves your browser.

Know exactly how long it takes to read an article before you start. Reading Time automatically detects article-style pages — blog posts, news articles, documentation, newsletters, forum discussions, research papers — and shows an estimated read time based on word count and your preferred reading speed.

Screenshots

What it does

  • Instant reading time estimate on every article, blog post, and long-form page

  • Based on an average reading speed of 200 words per minute (WPM), adjustable from 100 to 400 WPM

  • Word count, character count, and paragraph count

    click the extension icon any time

  • Clean, minimal badge that fades out automatically so it never gets in the way

  • Zero setup

    works the moment you install, no account, no login

  • Smart article detection keeps it out of your way on Gmail, YouTube, search results, dashboards, and other non-article pages

  • Private by design

    all processing runs locally, no tracking, no analytics, no data sent to any server

  • Readers deciding whether to read now or save for later

  • Students and researchers triaging long papers, reports, and essays

  • Professionals scanning long blog posts, newsletters, and industry reports

  • Writers and content creators checking how long their drafts take to read

  • Anyone who wonders "how long will this take to read?" before diving in

When you'd reach for it

  • Read now or save for later

    You are several tabs deep and short on time. Open the article and the estimate appears on its own in the top-right corner, so you can start it now or send it to a read-later list. The badge slides away after about five seconds without you touching anything.

  • Triaging papers and long reports

    Researchers and students usually open ten sources before reading one. Click the toolbar icon on each tab to see word count, character count and paragraph count next to the minute estimate. That is often enough to decide which document deserves a full read and which one you skim.

  • Matching the estimate to your own pace

    The default is 200 words per minute, which is faster than some people read and slower than others. Drag the slider in the popup anywhere between 100 and 400 WPM and the estimate recalculates for the page you are on. Reading in a second language, drop it lower.

Permissions & privacy

Single purpose

Reading Time has a single purpose: estimating how long it takes to read the content on the current web page. It counts the words on the page, calculates an estimated reading time based on an average reading speed of 200 words per minute, and displays the result as a small non-intrusive badge on the page. No data leaves the browser.

storageReading Time uses the storage permission to save user preferences locally via chrome.storage, such as display settings for the reading time badge. No personal data or page content is stored. Nothing is synced externally or sent to any server.
webNavigationReading Time uses the webNavigation permission to detect when a page has finished navigating — including in-page navigations on single-page applications (SPAs) where the URL changes without a full page reload. This allows the extension to recalculate the estimated reading time for the newly displayed document so the badge stays accurate as the user moves between articles or views. The permission is used only to observe navigation completion events; no browsing history or navigation data is collected, stored externally, or transmitted to any server.

It runs only the code shipped inside the package — no remote code is fetched.

Questions people ask

How do I see the estimated reading time of an article in Chrome?

Open any article page and the badge appears in the top-right corner by itself, reading something like "12 min read". There is nothing to click and nothing to set up first. Click the toolbar icon to see the same estimate along with word, character and paragraph counts for that page.

How is the read time calculated?

It counts the words inside the page's main content and divides by your reading speed, rounding up to the next whole minute. The default speed is 200 words per minute, adjustable from 100 to 400 in the popup. It looks for the article, main, or post-content area first and strips out scripts, navigation, headers and footers before counting.

Why does no badge show up on some pages?

The badge only appears on pages that identify themselves as articles, through an og:type of article, article: meta tags, or Article-type JSON-LD markup. Inboxes, dashboards, search results and video pages generally carry none of that, so nothing is injected there. Opening the popup on such a page shows "Open an article to see reading time" instead of numbers.

What permissions does it declare?

Two, and no host permissions. Storage holds your badge toggle and your WPM value in chrome.storage.local, which is why the popup opens with the pace you last set. webNavigation lets the background script be told when a page has finished navigating, including in-page navigation on single-page sites where the URL changes without a reload — that signal is what prompts a fresh count for the document now on screen, so the badge does not keep showing the previous article's estimate.

Can I hide the badge and still check reading time?

Yes. Turn "Show badge" off in the popup and nothing is injected into the page anymore. The estimate and the three counts are still there whenever you click the toolbar icon. The change applies immediately to the tab you are looking at.

Related extensions

More in: Productivity