How to read your own Codex reset time (and why public countdowns mislead)

The short version

There is no single Codex reset time. The reset time that applies to you comes from your account, is shown in your account, and can change.

Read it from one of these:

• Settings or your usage dashboard — the documented place to check which allowance is exhausted and any reset time shown.
• /status inside an active Codex CLI session.
• The limit notice you received, which lists the options available to your account, one of which is waiting until the displayed reset time.

If a number you saw elsewhere disagrees with the one in your account, your account is right.

Why public countdowns cannot be your countdown

A countdown published on a website is describing something else. Usually it is describing a public announcement: a statement that a reset is happening, or has happened, for some set of accounts.

That is genuinely useful information, but it is not the same object as your personal reset time:

• Scope differs. An announcement covers the accounts it covers. Your plan, your workspace and your eligibility determine whether it includes you.
• Automatic resets are not saved for later. The official guidance describes an automatic reset as applied directly to the usage limits covered by the announcement, with usage after it counted against the refreshed allowance. It is not a credit sitting in your account.
• Your own running windows still exist. The 5-hour and weekly windows are yours. A public event can refresh them, but it does not replace the need to read your own state.

A useful habit: treat public announcements as evidence that something happened, and treat your account screen as the only source for your state.

What changes your reset time

The documented case is a banked reset. When a full banked reset is used, it refreshes both the 5-hour and weekly windows and changes the weekly reset date. Afterwards, the official guidance is to check the usage screen for the updated reset time.

Practical consequence: if you used a reset and your weekly date moved, that is expected behaviour, not a display bug. Write the new date down — this is exactly the situation the personal timer tool on this site is for.

Quick checks when your date and reality disagree

1. Are you reading the right place? Plan-based usage and API-key billing are separate arrangements with separate numbers.
2. Which allowance is actually exhausted? There may be more than one. Fixing the wrong one looks like nothing happening.
3. Did anything change the window recently? A banked reset, a plan change or a workspace budget change all move the goalposts.
4. Are you in a workspace? On some workspace arrangements, an administrator controls the effective user limit and the reset period, so the reset time you see may be set by policy rather than by your own usage.

If the displayed reset time has passed

That is a distinct situation, and the official guidance pointing to support applies: contact support if access has not returned after the stated reset time.

Do not respond to it by repeatedly re-entering a timer, and do not assume a further 5 hours or 7 days will appear automatically. Nothing in the source material supports that.

Known limits of this guidance

• Evidence level: documentary, from the official help article as read on the review date.
• No reset period or allowance figure is stated, because these differ by plan.
• The precise interaction between plan-based windows, credits and workspace policies is only partly documented in the source. Where the source is silent, this guide says so rather than filling the gap.