How to Sleep or Wait X Seconds in a Bat File
This article will introduce how to sleep or wait x seconds in a bat file. Bat file execution pauses x seconds and then continues with the next commands.
Batch Sleep With timeout (> Windows 7 / 2008)
timetout delays the execution for the given seconds.
Syntax
timeout <seconds> /nobreak
<seconds> is any value between -1 and 100000. -1 causes the computer to wait indefinitely until a keystroke.
/nobreak ignores user keystrokes and the waiting could not be disturbed by any keystroke.
timeout Bat Sleep Example
timeout /t 5
It will pause 5 seconds before the next execution.
Batch Wait With ping Command
Although PC pauses the command execution for x seconds when you use timeout command, it still consumes quite a lot of the CPU load. ping command with a loopback address - 127.0.0.1 could also produce the 1-second delay between each consecutive ping, and it consumes less CPU load.
ping Bat Wait Example
ping -n 6 127.0.0.1>nul
6 means the delay is set to 6-1=5 seconds.
>nul pipes the standard-output stream to null and therefore there is no information displayed in the console.
Founder of DelftStack.com. Jinku has worked in the robotics and automotive industries for over 8 years. He sharpened his coding skills when he needed to do the automatic testing, data collection from remote servers and report creation from the endurance test. He is from an electrical/electronics engineering background but has expanded his interest to embedded electronics, embedded programming and front-/back-end programming.
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