Chess Clock How to pause a chess clock
Tap the pause icon in the middle of the clock screen. Both clocks freeze with no time gained or lost, and the screen shows Paused until you tap Resume.
A mechanical clock has no pause button. Whoever is running the game, usually an arbiter, stops it by hand, and a normal player asks them to. A phone clock can simply freeze, and that is the one thing it does better than the plastic kind.
Pausing in the app, step by step
- During a game, tap the pause icon in the round icon bar between the two halves. It is the second of four icons and has no visible text, only an accessibility name.
- The overlay reads Paused. The side that was on move keeps its turn.
- When you are ready, tap Resume. The same side's clock continues from exactly where it stopped.
Pausing in the middle of a move keeps the seconds already spent and does not count the break. With Simple Delay 5 on a 5-minute clock, say you think for 3 seconds, pause, resume and think 4 more seconds before tapping. The app sees one 7-second move, so after the tap the clock sits at 4:58: 300 minus the 2 seconds beyond the delay. Pausing does not reset the delay for that move.
What happens if you close the app
When the app goes to the background mid-game, it stores a paused copy of the game: both times, both move counts and whose turn it was. If iOS or you then close the app completely, the home list shows Resume Unfinished Game at the top.
Tap it and the game reopens paused at the stored times. Then Resume.
| What you do | Clock while away | Coming back |
|---|---|---|
| Tap pause first | Frozen | Tap Resume, same time |
| Switch apps or lock the phone, no pause | Keeps running | Time has gone down by the time you were away |
| Close the app completely | Not counted | Resume Unfinished Game, paused at stored times |
The middle row matters most: a 40-second call costs the player on move 40 seconds, because the app measures from timestamps. Pause before you pick up.
Limits to know
- The pause icon is greyed out until the first tap starts the clock, and again once a flag ends the game.
- Only the last tap can be undone. Pause does not give you extra undo steps.
- After a full close, the moves before the interruption are not in History. Only moves played after you resume are logged.
- The delay for the current move starts over when a game is restored from a closed app. It is a small edge for the player on move.
- One interrupted game is stored at a time.
Is pausing free?
Yes. Pause, resume and Resume Unfinished Game cost nothing in any mode. Pro only adds themes and sounds and removes ads.
Questions and answers
Can you pause a chess clock?
How do I stop a chess clock in the app?
Does the clock keep running if I switch apps?
Can I resume a chess game after closing the app?
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