Get set up in five minutes

Semester is a calm home for your whole term. Add your courses once, and your tasks, classes, exams, and grades all hang off them automatically.

1. Create your account

Sign up at yoursemester.com/signup with an email and password, or a one-tap magic link. You can also try the dashboard without an account first, then sign up later to turn on cloud sync. Your data is always yours.

2. Add your courses first

Open Grades and add each course with its code (e.g. CS 342), name, credits, a color, and the term. This matters because everything else, your classes, exams, tasks, and notes, links back to a course, so colors and grades stay tied together across the whole app.

3. Build out your week

Add your classes with their days and times, drop in tasks with due dates, and log your exam dates. Your Home page then shows exactly what today looks like.

4. Make it yours

In Settings, choose a light, dark, or auto theme (auto can switch on a schedule you set), pick an accent color, and set your time format and the first day of your week.

Install it like an app

Semester runs in any modern browser, but it installs to your home screen for a native feel: full screen, its own icon, and an instant launch. It works offline once installed, syncing back up when you reconnect.

• iPhone / iPad: open Semester in Safari, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.
• Android: open it in Chrome, tap the menu (three dots), then Install app or Add to Home screen.
• Mac / Windows: in Chrome or Edge, click the install icon at the right of the address bar.

The Home page

Home is your daily glance. It pulls everything together so you can see the day in one screen:

• Today: your classes for the day, in order, with the current class highlighted. A free day shows a quiet “Free day” card.
• Upcoming deadlines: your next exams with live countdowns.
• Tasks: what is due and still open.
• Focus streak and a quick way to start a focus block.
• Weather for your location, so you know whether to bring a jacket to that 9am.

Tasks

Capture everything you have to do, with as much or as little detail as you like.

Adding a task

• Give it a title, a due date, a priority (low, medium, or high), and optionally a linked course so it inherits that course’s color.
• Tasks with a due date show a friendly countdown (Today, Tomorrow, in 3 days) and surface on your Home page.

Finishing and tidying up

• Check a task off to complete it. Completed tasks can auto-clear after a number of days you choose in Settings (for example, one day), so your list never piles up.
• Sort your list by due date or by priority, and click any task to open the full editor.
• Link a task to a focus session to track exactly how long you have spent on it.

Classes & schedule

Your weekly timetable, color-coded by course.

• Add a class with its course, a title (Lecture, Lab, Tutorial), a room, the day or days it meets, and a start and end time down to the minute.
• Pick several weekdays at once for a class that repeats, like a Monday / Wednesday / Friday lecture.
• The Classes page shows each day’s lineup, and the class happening right now is highlighted so you always know where to be.
• Classes flow straight into your Home page and your Calendar.

Calendar & events

One place for classes, exams, and your own plans, in a week or month view.

• Your classes and exams appear automatically. On top of those, add your own events with a time, an end time, a location, a color, and notes.
• Overlapping events stack neatly side by side. Tap a stack to pick the one you want.
• Today is always highlighted, and the week view is built for phones as well as wide screens.

Exams

Keep every midterm and final in view, with the next one front and center.

• Log an exam with its date, time, room, and duration.
• The Next up banner shows your closest exam with a big day counter, and each exam in the list has its own countdown.
• Once an exam passes, it moves into a separate Passed exams section, so what is coming never gets buried under what is done.

Grades & GPA

Know exactly where you stand in every course, and across your whole degree.

Course grades

• Add grade items for a course, for example “Midterm: 30%” or “Final: 40%”, each with a weight and (once you have it) a score.
• Your course percentage and letter grade compute automatically as a weighted average, and update the moment you enter a new score.
• Open any course to see its hub: the current grade, your grade goal, focus time logged against it, and its linked tasks, exams, and notes.

GPA

• Semester tracks your term GPA and your cumulative GPA, credit-weighted, including past terms you add to your history.
• Using a different scale? Adjust the letter thresholds and points in Settings → Grading scale.

Grade goals

Set a target and see what it will take to hit it.

• On a course hub, choose the letter you are aiming for. Semester projects the range your final can land in and tells you the average you need on the work that is left.
• A clear badge shows whether you are on track, at risk, already secured, or whether the goal is out of reach, along with the best score still possible.

Focus timer

A quiet place to actually do the work.

• Choose Pomodoro, with focus blocks and short and long breaks, or a plain timer with no breaks. Each mode keeps its own lengths, and you can set how many focus blocks earn a long break.
• Link a task before you start, then hit play. Completed focus sessions count toward your streak and your daily minutes, and show up on your Home and grade pages.
• Go fullscreen for a distraction-free clock, with an optional music visualizer that reacts to your microphone or your computer’s own audio.
• The timer keeps accurate time even when the tab is in the background, and plays a soft chime when a block ends.

Flashcards & notes

• Flashcards: build a deck per course and review by flipping through the cards.
• Notes: jot anything down and link it to a course so it appears in that course’s hub when you need it.

Study rooms

Study together in real time, whether your group is across the hall or across the country.

• Create or join a room: spin up a room and share it with your group, or join one you have been invited to. You will see who else is in the room the moment they arrive.
• Talk and present natively: microphone and screen sharing are wired in directly, so you can chat through a problem set or share your screen without any browser fiddling.
• Stay in sync: presence updates live as people come and go, and each person controls their own mic and screen share.

Themes & settings

• Theme: light, dark, or auto. Auto can flip between light and dark at times you set.
• Accent color: tint the whole app to taste (every accent is unlocked with Pro).
• Time & locale: 12 or 24 hour clock, and whether your week starts on Sunday or Monday.
• Privacy mode: blur your grades and GPA until you choose to reveal them, handy on a shared screen.

Sync & devices

With an account, Semester keeps everything in sync across your phone, tablet, and laptop. Start a task on one device and finish it on another. Changes save instantly and merge safely, and the app keeps working offline against a local copy, then catches up the moment you are back online.

Backups & exports

• Full backup: Settings → Data → Export downloads everything as a single JSON file. Import restores it on any device.
• Grade report: generate a clean, printable PDF of your courses, grades, and GPA, ready to save or share.
• Calendar export: download an .ics file of your classes and exams to import or subscribe to in Google, Apple, or Outlook Calendar.

Privacy

Your work stays yours. Semester stores only the minimum needed to run your account, never sells your data, and lets you export or delete everything at any time. To wipe your dashboard, use Settings → Data → Reset all data. For the full details, read the Privacy Policy.

Troubleshooting

My changes are not showing on another device

Make sure you are signed in with the same account on both, and that you are online. Changes sync within a few seconds; a quick refresh forces a fresh pull.

The music visualizer is not moving

It needs permission to hear audio. For the microphone, allow mic access and play music out loud. For system audio, pick a tab or your whole screen and tick the “share audio” box when prompted.

I forgot my password

Use the reset link on the log in page and follow the email.