---
title: delay
description: The value for this setting is the number of seconds to delay between forceMerging indices, to allow the cluster to quiesce. There is no default value...
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/elasticsearch/curator/option_delay
products:
  - Elasticsearch
  - Elasticsearch Curator
---

# delay
<note>
  This setting is only used by the [forceMerge action](https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/elasticsearch/curator/forcemerge), and is optional.
</note>

```yaml
action: forcemerge
description: >-
  Perform a forceMerge on selected indices to 'max_num_segments' per shard
options:
  max_num_segments: 2
  timeout_override: 21600
  delay: 120
filters:
- filtertype: ...
```

The value for this setting is the number of seconds to delay between forceMerging indices, to allow the cluster to quiesce.
There is no default value.