Pause a Macro or Make it Slow Down in Excel

How to make a macro stop or pause for a specified amount of time.

This allows you to slow down the execution of a macro.

Method 1 - Simple but Not Versatile

Add this line of code anywhere in your macro where you want it to pause.

This will pause the macro for 1 second.

The first set of zeros is hours; the second set is minutes; the third set is seconds.

Method 2 - More Work but Better - Fractions of Seconds

Sometimes you need to pause a macro for a fraction of a second and, for this, we need to do something else.

Put this piece of code at the top of your module:

It would look like this:

Notice that it was put above the first Sub in the module.

Then, make the macro stop or pause using this method:

This is in milliseconds, so 1000 equals 1 second, 2000 equals 2 seconds and anything less than a thousand is a fraction of a second.

Both Methods in the VBA Editor

Notes

Both methods have their place; use whichever one works best for you.

Download the sample file attached to this tutorial to see these macros in Excel.