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How To Delay Scheduled Task in Task Scheduler on Windows 11 & 10

When you schedule a task in the Task Scheduler, Windows executes the task as soon as the event is triggered. For example, if you scheduled a task to run at system startup, the task runs as soon as you log into your user account. While this is what most users need, sometimes you might want to delay a scheduled task in Task Scheduler. In those cases, you can delay any scheduled task by using the “Delay” option in the Task Scheduler. Once delayed, the Task Scheduler will wait for a set amount of time after the event is triggered to run the task.

In this quick and easy tutorial, I will show the simplest way to delay Task Scheduler tasks on Windows 11 and Windows 10. Let’s get started.

Before You Begin

  • This tutorial assumes you’ve already created a scheduled task. If not, you can create one by clicking the “Create Basic Task” option in the Task Scheduler.
  • The steps below are tested to work on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Steps To Delay a Task in Task Scheduler

  1. Press the “Windows key” on your keyboard.
  2. Search and open “Task Scheduler“.
  3. Find the scheduled task and right-click on it.
  4. Select the “Properties” option.
  5. Go to the “Triggers” tab.
  6. Select the trigger and click “Edit“.
  7. Select the “Delay task for” checkbox.
  8. Select the time delay from the dropdown next to “Delay task for“.
  9. Click the “OK” button.
  10. With that, you’ve delayed the Task Scheduler scheduled task.

Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)

First, open the Task Scheduler application. To do that, press the “Windows key“, search for “Task Scheduler“, and click the “Open” option.

Once it opens, find the task you want to delay, right-click on it, and select the “Properties” option.

open task properties

The above action will open the task properties window. Here, go to the “Triggers” tab. Next, select the trigger and click the “Edit” button.

open trigger settings

Now, select the “Delay task for” checkbox and select the delay time from the dropdown next to it. I chose “15 minutes” as the delay time. That means, the task will be delayed for 15 minutes one the event is triggered. Next, click the “OK” button to save the changes.

delay scheduled task

Finally, close the Task Scheduler window. With that, you are done setting a delay for a scheduled task. From now on, when the event is triggered, the task will run after the chosen delay timer. For instance, following the same steps, I’ve delayed OneDrive and other startup programs so that my system startup won’t be affected by unnecessary startup applications.

That is all. It is simple to delay any scheduled task in Task Scheduler on both Windows 11 and Windows 10. If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to assist.

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