Scheduling

The free version of Power Automate Desktop doesn’t have a scheduled run feature. This means you can’t start a flow automatically at a specific date and time.

Instead, you can create a flow that loops indefinitely, gets the current time, and branches only when a specific time is reached.

This article explains how to do that.

Note

With a paid license such as Power Automate Premium, you can run flows on a schedule by calling a desktop flow from a cloud flow, for example with the “Recurrence” trigger. You can also call a desktop flow’s run URL from Windows Task Scheduler, but this also requires a Power Automate Premium plan (or access to a pay-as-you-go environment). Note that you can’t trigger desktop flows from the cloud on Windows 10 / 11 Home editions.

Implement an infinite loop (repeated processing)The free version doesn't support scheduled runs, so many people keep a flow running continuously without ending it, for example to monitor for a specific event. This article shows how to implement an infinite loop.

Implement by copying and pasting

As a sample, I created a flow that keeps looping and does something only at 8:00 in the morning.

Copy the following code and paste it into the Power Automate Desktop flow designer to add the actions.

LOOP FROM 0 TO 1 STEP 0
    DateTime.GetCurrentDateTime.Local DateTimeFormat: DateTime.DateTimeFormat.DateAndTime CurrentDateTime=> CurrentDateTime
    Text.ConvertDateTimeToText.FromCustomDateTime DateTime: CurrentDateTime CustomFormat: $'''HH''' Result=> CurrentHour
    Text.ConvertDateTimeToText.FromCustomDateTime DateTime: CurrentDateTime CustomFormat: $'''mm''' Result=> CurrentMinute
    IF (CurrentHour = '08' AND CurrentMinute = '00') = True THEN
        Display.ShowMessageDialog.ShowMessage Title: $'''The specified time has arrived.''' Message: $'''It is 8:00 AM!''' Icon: Display.Icon.Information Buttons: Display.Buttons.OK DefaultButton: Display.DefaultButton.Button1 IsTopMost: False
    END
    WAIT 60
END

The IF statement contains multiple conditions. For details on this technique, see the following page.

Set multiple conditions in a conditional branchExplains how to set multiple conditions in a single If statement by using the Boolean type, which returns true or false.

Points to watch out for

Watch out for duplicate runs

In this sample, the loop runs every minute and only does something at 8:00.

However, if the condition only checked whether it was in the 8 o’clock hour, the actions inside the IF statement would run about 60 times.

You need to prevent duplicate runs, for example by defining a variable that tracks whether the processing has already run and setting it once the processing runs.

Watch out for missed runs

“WAIT 60” only waits 60 seconds, so each iteration takes slightly longer than 60 seconds by the time the actions in the loop take to run. As a result, on rare occasions, no check happens during the minute of 8:00, and the processing doesn’t run. If you need it to run reliably, shorten the wait time and combine it with the “already run” flag described above.