Hello developers!
Today, I want to talk about something every automation developer eventually faces: errors in Power Automate Desktop (PAD) flows. If you're working with PAD and haven't encountered any errors yet, don’t worry, you will!
But the good news is that handling errors gracefully is not rocket science. In this article, I'll show you how to build robust desktop flows that don’t crash unexpectedly and make your automation journey a lot smoother.
Why is Error Handling Important?
Power Automate Desktop interacts with many systems, desktop apps, browsers, Excel, files, and even legacy systems. But these systems are not always predictable. Sometimes.
- A file may not be present.
- A window might not open on time
- A web page might throw a pop-up
- A loop might run into an empty value
If you don’t handle such exceptions, your flow may fail abruptly, leaving your user confused and frustrated.
So, error handling is not optional, especially when you're building automations for real users or clients.
Built-in Error Handling in Power Automate Desktop
PAD provides a few simple and effective ways to manage errors. Here are the most commonly used methods.
Step 1. “On Error” Property for Actions.
Most actions in PAD come with an “On Error” dropdown. You can choose what to do if that action fails.
- Continue Flow
- Set Variable
- Go to Label
- Run Subflow
![Run Subflow]()
Click on the error, and then try the Retry policy based on your requirements.
![Retry policy]()
You can choose to continue to flow, run, or throw an error.
Example
Let’s say you're using the Launch Excel action. What if Excel is not installed?
On Error → Go to Label → “ExcelNotFound”
![ExcelNotFound]()
This way, instead of stopping the flow, you can redirect the execution to a custom error handling label.
Pro Tip
Always keep “Go to Label” or “Run Subflow” as your go-to error strategy for critical steps.
Best Practices for Error Handling in PAD
- Always name your labels properly. Don't leave them as “Label1”, “Label2”.
- Use the Log Message action to write logs for debugging.
- Avoid displaying raw errors to users — use friendly error messages instead.
- Break your flows into subflows and add error handling per subflow.
- Think of edge cases from the user’s perspective — file missing, window delay, wrong credentials, etc.
Final Thoughts
Error handling may not be the most glamorous part of automation, but it's what separates a beginner flow from a professional-grade solution.
Power Automate Desktop gives us flexible options to handle errors; we just need to use them wisely.
Hope this article gave you a solid understanding of how to tackle errors in PAD flows. If you’ve got any tips or want to share how you do error handling, feel free to drop a comment!
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Happy Automating!
Do you work with Power Automate Desktop regularly? What kind of errors have you faced? Let’s discuss below in the comments!