On this page

TwiML™ Voice: <Pause>

The <Pause> verb waits silently for a specific number of seconds. If <Pause> is the first verb in a TwiML document, Twilio will wait the specified number of seconds before picking up the call.

Verb Attributes

The <Pause> verb supports the following attributes that modify its behavior:

Attribute Name	Allowed Values	Default Value
length	integer > 0	1 second

length

The 'length' attribute specifies how many seconds Twilio will wait silently before continuing on.

Nesting Rules

You can't nest any verbs within <Pause>, but you can nest the <Pause> verb within the following verbs:

<Gather>

Examples

Example 1: Pause

This example demonstrates using <Pause> to wait between two <Say> verbs.

Pause example

1const VoiceResponse = require('twilio').twiml.VoiceResponse;
2
3
4const response = new VoiceResponse();
5response.say('I will pause 10 seconds starting now!');
6response.pause({
7    length: 10
8});
9response.say('I just paused 10 seconds');
10
11console.log(response.toString());

Output

1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2<Response>
3    <Say>I will pause 10 seconds starting now!</Say>
4    <Pause length="10"/>
5    <Say>I just paused 10 seconds</Say>
6</Response>

Example 2: Delayed pickup

This example demonstrates using <Pause> to delay Twilio for 5 seconds before accepting a call.

Delayed pickup

1const VoiceResponse = require('twilio').twiml.VoiceResponse;
2
3
4const response = new VoiceResponse();
5response.pause({
6    length: 5
7});
8response.say('Hi there.');
9
10console.log(response.toString());

Output

1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2<Response>
3    <Pause length="5"/>
4    <Say>Hi there.</Say>
5</Response>