Frequently asked questions
The questions people actually send in.
Is the death clock accurate?
It is accurate about populations and silent about you. The model reproduces the Social Security Administration's published life expectancy figures exactly, and its lifestyle adjustments come from large cohort studies. But an actuarial table describes what happens to a hundred thousand people, not what happens to one. Treat the number as a well-sourced average for people who answered the way you did, and treat the survival band around it as the honest version of the answer.
How does the death clock calculate my death date?
Three steps. It starts from the SSA 2023 period life table, which gives the probability of dying at every age for men and women. It re-bases that table onto your country by solving for the mortality multiplier that reproduces your country's published life expectancy. Then it applies a hazard ratio for each of your answers, drawn from published meta-analyses, and computes remaining life expectancy from the adjusted table.
Is my data stored anywhere?
No. The entire calculation runs in your browser. There is no account, no database and no server that sees your answers. Your result is encoded into the share link itself, in the part of the URL after the # symbol, which browsers never transmit to a web server — so even our access logs cannot see it.
Can I come back to my clock later?
Yes, and without an account. Your browser remembers your latest result, so the next time you open dieometer.com it greets you with your clock, still counting down, and the My clock button at the top opens it from any page. Add it to your home screen and it is one tap away. Your result link is the copy that works anywhere: on another device, or after you clear your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and Forget it on this device removes it.
What is the difference between fun mode and serious mode?
The engine is identical; only the questions and the tone change. Fun mode asks eight quick, blunt questions and gives you an archetype worth screenshotting. Serious mode asks twelve, including your real height and weight, any diagnosed conditions and family history, and shows every factor's contribution in years with the study behind it.
Can I really gain back the years it says I can?
The years are real in the statistical sense: people who make those changes do, on average, live that much longer. Whether you personally recover them depends on how early you change and how long the change sticks. Quitting smoking before forty avoids roughly ninety percent of the excess risk, which is about as strong as this kind of evidence ever gets.
Why does my country change the answer so much?
Because it is the single largest factor in the whole model. Life expectancy at birth ranges from about 54 years to about 86 depending on where you live — a wider spread than smoking, obesity and inactivity combined. That gap is driven by healthcare access, sanitation, infant mortality and violence, none of which are personal choices.
The number upset me. What should I do with it?
Take the recoverable years seriously and the date itself lightly. If a result about death is distressing rather than merely sobering, please talk to someone — a doctor, or a crisis line in your country, which you can find at findahelpline.com. This is a statistics toy built on public data, and it does not know anything about you.
Is the death clock free?
Yes. The calculator, the countdown, the factor breakdown and the share card are all free and need no account. There is an optional paid report that turns the results into a specific plan, but nothing on the calculator is gated behind it.
Ready for your own number?
Start my death clock →