Getting started
After a trigger occurs, an Applet’s action will run within a few seconds. If you’d prefer to have that action executed at a later time, you can put a delay in between your trigger and your actions to unlock all sorts of potentials with your workflow.
Delays work really well for sending confirmation for follow up events and actions for your social media posts, your email, or really anytime you want to wait a little while before executing an action. Uchenna, one of our amazing product managers, put together this video to show you different ways you can use the Delay feature.
How long can I delay an action?
The Delay feature allows you to choose a delay from 15 seconds to 3 hours and 55 minutes between the trigger and the action. Delays can be added directly from the Applet composer on ifttt.com/create.
Adding a delay
- Navigate to the Applet composer via ifttt.com/create.
- Add a trigger of your choice.
- Click the "plus (+) sign" and choose 'Delay'.
- Set the length of time you want the delay to occur between the trigger and the action.
- Choose your action.
- Save.
Examples of using a delay
Smart Home Delays:
Delays can be very useful for automating your smart home devices to turn them on and then off after a set amount of time. For example, if you’d like to turn on a light, then turn it off five minutes later this can be done using Delays and the Webhooks service.
Set up an Applet with a trigger of your choice paired with an action to turn on your smart light bulb and another action to Make a web request. Configure a second Applet with the Receive a web request trigger, include a delay of five minutes, and an action to turn off your bulb.
Email Automation:
If you are automating emails or text messages to potential customers with IFTTT, you may want to put a 30 second or 5 minute delay between when the customer fills out the lead form, and you follow up with an automated message. You can also build an entire email drip flow using a few delay steps and emails.