Trying to find an earlier U.S. visa appointment is incredibly frustrating.

You log in each day. No slots.

You log in again the next day. Still nothing.

You keep doing this for a couple of weeks, and eventually you start wondering if earlier slots even exist.

The good news: they do.

Embassies open new slots through cancellations or new appointment batches.

The bad news: the timing is random, so this can happen to you:

• 9:00 AM — You check before you start your day. No slots.
• 1:00 PM — Lunch time, you're trying to be consistent and check. No slots.
• 2:57 PM — A slot appears.
• 2:59 PM — Someone else grabs it.
• 6:00 PM — You check again after work. No slots.

As far as you knew, the embassy never had any earlier slots.

In reality, you just missed that two-minute window.

And that’s the part that messes with you: even if you’re checking consistently, you never really know whether there were no slots — or whether you just weren’t looking at the right minute.

That is why Telegram/WhatsApp/Discord groups and crowdsourced apps can help. More people are checking, so someone may share when they see slots.

But knowing that slots opened is not the same as getting one.

The hard truth is simple: there are not enough slots for everyone who wants them.

When earlier slots open, everyone is trying to book one before someone else does. If someone clicks “Submit” before you, they get the slot and you don’t.

And everyone in those groups is trying to get the same slots. If 10 slots open and 1,000 people get the same alert, people already logged into the portal can see those slots sooner and act faster.

So the best way to be there first is to already be checking when the slot appears - but most people do not have the time or patience to check the portal manually all day.

I first had this problem when I was trying to find an earlier appointment for my girlfriend.

I tried the same things most people try: checking manually, joining group chats, using community slot apps, and hoping to catch a slot before it disappeared.

But manual checking was too much work, and group chats were full of unrelated messages. Even when I finally saw messages saying slots were open, it was usually already too late.

I’m a developer, so I built something to make the process less painful. It helped me get an appointment for my girlfriend, and I’ve also used it to book slots for other people.

Now I’m making it public for everyone else stuck doing the same thing.

It’s a Chrome extension that helps you check the portal while you’re already logged in.

It works with embassies that use the usvisascheduling.com website, like India, Pakistan, Australia, Philippines, Thailand, and others, and all visa types where you have to find your own appointment (H1B,H4, B1/B2,F1, F2, etc) — many of these have no slots available or very faraway dates.

You log in normally, open the schedule page, choose how often you want it to check, and keep the page open while you do other things on your computer. The extension checks for available dates and alerts you when something needs your attention.

It also can help you stay logged in by auto-refreshing the home page.

It can help you avoid 1015 rate limits.

It can help you avoid the 'you have reached the maximum times' you can see the calendar.

I built it to be transparent. You can see exactly what it is doing as it checks the calendar the same way you normally would.

You still need to pay attention when something happens, but the extension reduces the repetitive work, so you can check more often with less focus and effort.

People who were checking manually with no results are now using it to successfully find slots.

It’s completely free to use, with optional upgrades if you want more help:

findvisaslots.com

Feedback and questions welcome

FindVisaSlots: New Delhi B1/B2 October OFC + Consular

If you're looking for slots - you can do it manually and potentially waste weeks, or do it with the help of the extension and increase your chances of success.