How to schedule a shutdown at a specific time on Windows 11

Method 1: Free, the shutdown command (a countdown)

Open Command Prompt or Terminal (no admin needed for your own PC) and type:

shutdown /s /t 3600

• /s shuts down the PC (use /r to restart instead).
• /t 3600 is the delay in seconds: 3600 is 1 hour, 5400 is 90 minutes, 7200 is 2 hours.

Microsoft's documentation says /t accepts 0 to 315,360,000 seconds (10 years), and that any delay above 0 implies /f, which force-closes running apps. Save your work first.

Changed your mind? Open a new Command Prompt and run:

shutdown /a

That aborts the pending shutdown, and it only works during the countdown. Source: Microsoft Learn: shutdown.

Method 2: Free, shut down at a specific clock time

shutdown only takes a countdown, so for "at 23:00" you have two free options.

A. Work out the seconds in PowerShell:

shutdown /s /t ([int]((Get-Date '23:00') - (Get-Date)).TotalSeconds)

This counts the seconds from now until 23:00 today. If 23:00 has already passed, the number is negative and the command fails, so use it before the target time.

B. Task Scheduler, for one time or every night:

schtasks /create /tn "Nightly shutdown" /tr "shutdown /s /t 60" /sc daily /st 23:00

This creates a task that starts a 60-second shutdown countdown at 23:00 every day. That leaves you a minute to run shutdown /a. Use /sc once for a single night. Delete it later with schtasks /delete /tn "Nightly shutdown".

The catch with the free methods: nothing on screen shows the time left, you can't pause, and anyone at the keyboard can type shutdown /a.

Method 3: A timer window you can pause and lock (Solace Shutdown)

Solace Shutdown is a small Windows app that puts all of this in one window. We tested it on Windows 11. Here's what it does.

Step 1: Pick the action and the time

Choose Shutdown, Restart, Hibernate, Sleep, Logout or Lock, then either a countdown (for example 1 h 30 min) or a time of day (for example 23:00).

Step 2: Check the time, then click Start

A countdown window shows the time remaining. Tip: always check the time field before you press Start. A fresh install can open with Shutdown set to 0:00:00. The current version won't start a zero countdown, so set your time first.

Step 3: Change your mind without a command line

From the countdown window, our test confirmed you can:

• Pause, which freezes the countdown (ours stopped at 1:59:44), and Resume.
• Reset the timer back to the start, or set a new countdown (we changed 2:00:00 to 3:00:00).
• Stop and exit, which ends the timer completely.

Step 4 (optional): Password-protect the timer

Start it with a password and a lock icon appears. Stop and exit then asks for the password, so someone else at the PC can't cancel your overnight backup's shutdown. In our test the password wasn't saved in the settings file. One quirk: pressing Cancel on the password prompt shows "Incorrect password!". The timer stays safely locked and running.

For scripts and shortcuts

It has a command line, so a desktop shortcut can prefill a timer. Adding these switches after the app's path in a shortcut:

/SetMode Prefill /SetTime 02:00:00 /SetAction Lock

filled in a 2-hour Lock timer, ready to start, in our test.

What else we checked

• No admin rights: it ran as a standard user with no UAC prompt.
• No network connections: we saw none while monitoring the app. There's no account and no update check.
• Small: a portable ZIP of about 0.5 MB. Settings live in %AppData%\Solace Shutdown.
• Unsigned: SmartScreen will warn you on first launch, so check the SHA-256 on the product page. Windows 10 or 11 with .NET Framework 4.8 (built into current Windows).

What we didn't test. To keep our test PC safe, we never let a timer reach zero, so we didn't watch it actually shut down, restart or sleep the machine. We also didn't try the tray icon. Shutdown, restart and logout close other programs, so save your work first.

Free vs paid: which is right?

• Once in a while: shutdown /s /t 3600 is all you need, and it's free and built in.
• Every night at the same time: a Task Scheduler task is free and reliable.
• You want to see the time left, pause or extend it, or stop others cancelling it: that's what a timer app adds. That's Solace Shutdown, with our support included.

Get Solace Shutdown

Solace Shutdown: a shutdown timer for Windows, $22.99 one-time →

You get 12 months of support and a 14-day refund if the package can't start its core check.