How to make Siri wait longer before it processes your request and responds

You can make Siri wait longer and keep listening until you’re done talking. In this quick guide, we’ll show you how to do that and increase the Siri pause time so that Assistant patiently waits for your voice command to finish before it starts working on it.

Problem

When using Siri, especially when you’re not entirely sure about a question and pause to think, you may notice that the moment you hesitate or pause, Siri stops listening and starts working on your request based on what she heard up to this point.. This most likely leads to incorrect or useless answers from the voice assistant.

In other words, Siri can act until the right moment and not give you a chance to think (or hesitate) after you have invoked it.

But you can change that by using these two tips.

1. Keep holding the Siri button

When you long press the side or home button to activate Siri, do not release the button. Instead, hold down the button and say a voice command with any number of pauses and breaks. Siri will listen while you hold the side button or the home button.

After you’ve spoken your command, release the button and Siri will follow through.

This way, you can get Siri’s attention for as long as you need. However, it has a drawback, which we will discuss below.

2. Set Siri to wait longer

Holding down the Siri button all the time is a helpful tip. However, it only works when you activate the voice assistant by pressing a button on your iPhone or wired headphones.

But what about when you invoke Siri by saying “Hey Siri”, by quickly pressing the side/home button, or by double tapping or tapping on AirPods?

iOS 16 solved this problem by introducing a new customization option called Siri Pause Time. This is found in the accessibility settings and is intended primarily for people who cannot speak quickly or at a normal pace. But anyone can use it to make Siri less impatient.

Follow these steps to make Siri wait longer before it starts responding:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone running iOS 16.
2. Touch Availability.
3. Scroll down and select Siri.
4. Under Siri Pause Time, choose Longer or Longest.

Going forward, Siri will wait longer before fulfilling your request.