How to Delay a Batch File

Written by Jack Lloyd

Last Updated: December 25, 2020 Tested

This wikiHow teaches you how to prevent a batch file from running immediately after being opened. There are a few different commands you can use to delay your batch file depending on your needs. Keep in mind that you should have a fairly firm grasp on how to write a batch file before attempting to delay one.

Steps

1
Open Start
. Click the Windows logo in the bottom-left corner of the screen.
- If you have an existing batch file you'd like to delay, right-click the file, then click Edit to open the file in Notepad. You can then skip the next two steps.
2
Open Notepad. Type in notepad to search for Notepad, then click Notepad at the top of the Start window.

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3
Create your batch file. Often starting with the @echo off command, enter your batch file's text as needed.
4
Determine how you want to delay your file. There are three main commands you can use to delay a batch file:^{[1]
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- PAUSE — Causes the batch file to pause until a standard key (e.g., the spacebar) is pressed.
- TIMEOUT — Prompts the batch file to wait for a specified number of seconds (or a key press) before proceeding.
- PING — Pauses the batch file until the file receives a return ping from a specified computer address. This usually results in only a small delay if you ping a working address.
5
Select a place to delay your file. You can delay a batch file at any point in the code (save for after the "Exit" command if you used one). Scroll down until you find the point at which you want to delay the file, then create a space between the code before the delay point and the code after.
6
Type in your command. Depending on your preferred command, do one of the following:
- PAUSE — Type pause into the line. You don't need to add anything else here.
- TIMEOUT — Type timeout time where "time" is replaced by the number of seconds to delay. For example, typing in timeout 30 will delay your batch file for 30 seconds.
  - If you want to prevent people from skipping the delay with a keypress, type in timeout time /nobreak (where "time" is the number of seconds to wait).
- PING — Type in ping address where "address" is the IP address for a computer or website you want to PING.
7
Save your document as a batch file. If you haven't yet saved your document as a batch file, do the following:
- Click File, then click Save As....
- Type in your file's name followed by .bat (e.g., "My Batch File" would become "My Batch File.bat").
- Click the "Save as type" drop-down box, then click All Files.
- Select a save location, then click Save.
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Community Q&A

Question

How do I not get a message when I use timeout?

Community Answer

Add the >nul qualifier, like this: timeout /t 120 >nul. This causes a 2 minute delay with no output to the screen.
Question

What if the sleep command doesn't work?

Community Answer

If the sleep command doesn't work, use timeout instead.
Question

What if I want to wait less than one second? I can't just use a dot or a comma.

Community Answer

You can use the ping command. This command, if used with a non-existent IP address, will try to talk to a non-existent computer and give up after a specified number of milliseconds. Just multiply the number of seconds by 1000, and you're good to go.
Question

What can I do if the PING command skips?

Community Answer

Make sure that you are using an invalid IP address. Also, remove '>nul' from the end and see what it outputs -- this might tell you why it skips.
Question

How do I check if a folder is created?

David Langr

Community Answer

In this case, you can use "Parenthesis": @echo off IF EXIST "C:\Folder" ( echo Folder exists! ) ELSE ( Echo Folder does not exist! ) pause > nul
Question

How do I get rid of a warning message for a time out?

Community Answer

To get rid of the warning message for a timeout, out >nul at the end of the line, and it will hide the warning.
Question

How do I delete the message for ping?

Community Answer

You should have: ping [a fake ip] Add >nul Now it should look like this: ping [a fake ip] >nul
Question

Can time out be used under an IF condition?

Community Answer

Yes, example: IF "String" == "String" (timeout 10 echo "String is equal to other string").
Question

What do i do if the TIMEOUT command skips?

Community Answer

You might have pressed a key before or during the timeout part. You should use timeout /t /nobreak.

Warnings

The formerly used "SLEEP" command does not work on Windows 10.

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Batch files won't run on Mac computers.

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