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PROOF that it is indeed possible to delay a Zap for less than 1 minute using the Delay For action step!

 

Credits

Troy Tessalone is a Certified Zapier Expert at Automation Ace.

 

Don’t believe everything you read, and when in doubt, test it out!

 

Screenshot below shows the Zap Run history with a timestamp created before and after 30 second delay.

(Note: The time difference between the 2 timestamps shown is a bit longer than 30 seconds because of the time it takes to process the other Zap steps.)

 

Notice below the field Time Delayed For (value) it states:

Use a number (decimals are accepted). Note: minimum delay is one minute.

 

How the Zap with a delay for less than 1 minute was tested…

Created a Zap with these 5 steps.

Step 1 triggers the Zap from a webhook.

Step 2 creates a timestamp before the delay.

Step 3 does a delay for .5 minutes (aka 30 seconds).

Step 4 creates a timestamp after the delay.

Step 5 posts a webhook with the timestamps before and after the delay.

 

Cheat Sheet

.083 = ~5 seconds

.166 = ~10 seconds

.25 = 15 seconds

.333 = ~20 seconds

.5 = 30 seconds

.666 = ~40 seconds

.75 = 45 seconds

 

Help article about Delay For: https://zapier.com/help/create/customize/add-delays-to-zaps#delay-for

 

 Rejoice, no need for a Code step to get a Zap to delay less than 1 minute, altho check out this Topic if interested...

 

Happy Hacking!

Well, look at that! I’m not 100% sure it would be reliable but if someone was fine with it taking up to a minute, but would *prefer* to have it delayed for less time, then it appears you’ve shown that it’s possible :)

As Troy would say:

When in doubt, test it out!

 

I am assuming this would work for the delay after too.

@thehousemanager 

It should.

When in doubt, test it out!

We had high hopes that this would work, and used it in many of our zaps. Unfortunately using this method has proven to be a bad decision for us. Even though they work as expected most of the time, often our zaps get stuck on the delay steps set to less than 1 minute, and don’t continue to subsequent steps, or they are delayed for much longer time intervals (sometimes hours). We’re in the process now of removing all of these delay steps from our zaps, as we have enough evidence to see that they cannot be relied upon, and are causing too many errors to be feasible.

Hi @jonah 

If you post your own topic with screenshots of the stuck Delay steps and how your Zap steps are configured, then perhaps the Community can help diagnosing your issue.

In the recent update, it looks like Zapier has removed the limitation of delaying for less than 1 minute, can anyone confirm?

Hi @Dubs24 👋

Ah, it seems the old help text that stated the limit was lost in a recent update to the Delay app. I’ve done some checking on this end and delays of less than 1 minute still aren’t officially supported. So while it’s possible to use the workaround to set delays of under a minute it’s not guaranteed that it will work consistently.

Once we officially support delays of less than a minute we’ll be sure to follow up in the thread here to let folks know! 🙂

@Dubs24 

Delay For under 1 minute still works using the new Delay Zap app.

See example with screenshots of the timestamps.

.1 minutes = 6 seconds

 

That’s correct @Troy Tessalone. As I mentioned, it’s still possible to use that workaround but it’s not officially supported at this time. 

@Dubs24 - I’ve just learned that the help text is still there, but you have click the field name before it’s displayed:
c6e0b612f144350f65fcfd1203c87c01.png

Hope that helps! 🙂

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