---
title: Wait For Email Reply action
description: Pause a flow until an email reply is received to an outbound email record
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/build-workflows/workflow-studio/wait-for-email-reply-action.html
release: australia
product: Workflow Studio
classification: workflow-studio
topic_type: reference
last_updated: "2026-03-12"
reading_time_minutes: 3
breadcrumb: [Actions, Flows, subflows, and actions reference, Flows, subflows, and actions, Workflow Studio, Build workflows]
---

# Wait For Email Reply action

Pause a flow until an email reply is received to an outbound email record

## Roles and availability

This action is a ServiceNow Core action.

## Inputs

Provide a value for each input that your action needs. To add dynamic values, you can also select data pills using the pill picker.

-   **Record \[Email\]**

    Data type: **Reference**

    The Email \[sys\_email\] record that you want the action to wait for a reply to.

    **Note:** The email record has to meet the following requirements to be valid:

    -   The target record field of the email has to be populated.
    -   The email record that you select must be an outbound email type such as "sent" or "send-ready." You can change the types of outbound email through the**com.glide.hub.flow\_engine.wait\_for\_email\_reply\_input\_state** system property. For more information, see [Workflow Studio flow system properties](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/build-workflows/workflow-studio/flow-designer-system-properties.md)
-   **Enable Timeout**

    Data type: **True/False**

    Option to limit the amount of time that the flow waits for the action to be completed before continuing.

-   **Duration**

    Data type: **Duration**

    Amount of time that the flow waits before continuing when the **Enable timeout** option is selected. Enter the time to wait in hours, minutes, and seconds. If you leave this field empty, the flow doesn’t wait.

-   **Schedule**

    Data type: **Record**

    Schedule record used to compute the timeout duration when the **Enable timeout** option is selected. For example, waiting for 10 hours as part of an 8-5 weekdays schedule causes the flow to wait for one or more business days. If you leave this field empty, the timeout runs without a schedule.


## Outputs

The following outputs appear in the Data panel. You can use them as inputs elsewhere in your flow.

-   **Email Reply**

    Data type: **Record**

    The Email \[sys\_email\] record that was sent in reply to the input email record.

-   **State**

    Data type: **Choice**

    The completion status of the action as a numeric value.

    -   0 \(Success: There was an email reply\)
    -   1 \(Error: There was no email reply\)

## General Guidelines

Use these general guidelines when creating flows that wait for an email reply.

-   **Add a timeout duration for the Wait for Email Reply action**

    Add a timeout value to prevent your flow from pausing indefinitely if no reply is ever received. Use a timeout duration greater than a few hours and preferably in days. The timeout value needs to provide sufficient time for the instance to process outbound email in the "send-ready" state and also time for the instance to process inbound email replies. You can use a timeout value along with the Status output to handle cases when an email message never receives a reply. For example, you can use an If flow logic block to check for a status value of 1 and then have your flow continue based on there being no reply.

-   **Use the Email Reply output as input data for other flow actions**

    You can use the content of the Email Reply as data for another flow action. For example, you could update an Incident record with the contents of a reply or use the lack of a reply to set the state of an incident to closed.

-   **Use the Send Email action as an input**

    You can use the output of the Send Email action as the input of the Wait for Email Reply action.

-   **Emails with existing replies don’t pause the flow**

    If the email input already has an existing reply, the flow doesn’t pause on the action. In that case, the outputs are populated with a reference to the existing email reply and the flow progresses normally.


## Wait for an email reply about a resolved incident

\[Omitted image "example-wait-for-email-reply.png"\] Alt text: Example flow that waits for a reply to an incident resolved message

In this example flow, the flow sends an email when an incident update is resolved. The Wait For Email Reply action waits for three business days for a reply. If there’s a reply, the incident record state is updated to Work in Progress for an agent to review. If there’s no reply, the incident record is updated to the Closed state.

**Parent Topic:**[Workflow Studio actions](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/build-workflows/workflow-studio/flow-actions.md)