How to add a pause or wait to a macro

Adding a pause takes one Wait step. In Macro by Zaweba, open the macro in the step editor, select the step the pause should follow, add a Wait step and set how long it lasts, for example Wait 500 ms. Everything saves straight away, so the next replay includes it.

Recordings already keep the time between your actions, so most macros have natural pauses built in. An extra Wait is for the places where a program needs more time on replay than it did when you recorded.

Why a macro needs a wait

A macro clicks and types as soon as its timing says so. Programs don't always keep up. A dialog takes a moment to open, a web page loads slowly, a file takes time to save. If the next click arrives before the screen is ready, it lands on whatever happens to be there.

You'll often see this as a macro that works at 1x but goes wrong at 2x, or works in the morning and fails later in the day. Both usually point to a missing wait.

Adding the Wait step

Open the macro from the library. The steps are listed in plain English, such as Click left at 512, 300, Type "hello" and Key Ctrl+S.

Find the step that sets off the slow action. It might be a click on Open, a Key step that saves or a Type step that ends with a search. Select it.

Add a Wait step. The step editor offers click, double-click, type text, key combo, wait, type from list, scroll, move, press and release a button, and note. Choose wait and enter the length.

If it went in the wrong place, move it with Alt+Up or Alt+Down. To edit a step later, press Enter or double-click it. Ctrl+D duplicates a step, which is quick when the same wait is needed in several places, and Del removes one.

Play the macro and watch the point where it used to go wrong.

How long to wait

Start generous and trim later. A wait that is too long only costs a moment; one that is too short makes the whole macro unreliable. If a program sometimes takes longer, such as when a network drive is slow, allow for the slow case.

Remember that waits scale with replay speed. At 2x, a recorded 500 ms wait becomes half as long, and at No delays the waits go entirely. If one wait must stay long at high speed, make it longer to suit the speed you use, or play that macro at 1x.

The gap inside a double-click doesn't scale, so speeding a macro up won't break its double-clicks.

Pausing between loops

When a macro repeats, there's a separate optional pause between loops, set with the repeat options. That's the place to give a form time to reset or a list to refresh before the next round. It saves putting a wait at the very end of the macro, and it keeps the step list cleaner.

Other ways to give a program time

Slowing the whole replay down is the quickest test. Choose 0.5x and play. If the macro works at half speed, timing is the problem and a wait or two will fix it.

A note step can mark why a wait is there, which helps when you come back to the macro months later and wonder whether it can go.

If the wait you need is for a person, such as typing a password yourself, a Wait step is the wrong tool. Split the job into two macros or do that part by hand. A replay can always be stopped by holding Esc for one second.