Wait
Pause the test for a fixed number of seconds. The bluntest tool in the box — almost always worse than Wait Until.
Wait pauses the test for a fixed number of seconds. It's the simplest and least-recommended way to handle timing — almost always Wait Until is the better choice because it stops as soon as the condition is met.
What it does
Sleeps for the configured number of seconds. Nothing else.
Settings
The Wait editor exposes a single field:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Delay (seconds)* | How long to pause, in seconds. Allows fractional values (e.g. 0.5). |
What's possible
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Padding around long animations that don't have a stable end-state Mavster can detect.
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Throttling test runs against rate-limited backends.
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Inserting deliberate human-readable pauses while debugging a recording.
What's not possible
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Polling — Wait can't react to anything that happens during the sleep. Use Wait Until.
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Variable durations — Delay is a static numeric value per step. Placeholders aren't recognized in numeric fields.
Common patterns
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Don't reach for Wait first. Try Wait Until first — it stops as soon as your condition is met, so the happy path runs faster and is more robust.
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Use Wait when the system is genuinely time-driven. A "wait 30 seconds for the verification email to arrive" gate is honestly better as a fixed pause than as a polling loop, because nothing on screen changes.
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Keep Waits short. Anything over a few seconds suggests the test is fighting the app rather than asserting on it.