What a macro is

A macro is a button you make yourself. When you press it, the game runs a short list of commands, one line after another, the same way every time. Most of the ones people use are two or three lines long.

Where it lives

Press Esc and choose Macros, or type /macro in chat. The window has two tabs. General macros are shared by every character on your account, up to 120 of them. The tab with your character's name holds up to 30 that only this character sees.

Click New, give it a name of up to 16 characters, pick an icon, and type the commands in the box at the bottom. Then drag the macro from the list onto your action bar, where it behaves like any other button. The box holds 255 characters. Everything on this site fits, and the builder counts as you type.

What the lines mean

Each line starts with a slash command, the same ones you can type in chat. /cast Frostbolt casts Frostbolt. /use 13 uses whatever is in your top trinket slot. /say Pulling in 3 says it. The lines run from the top down, and a line that can't do anything at the moment is skipped while the rest still run.

One press casts one spell. If you list two, the second fails because the first one put you on the global cooldown. Things that skip that cooldown, like most trinkets, a warrior's Bloodrage or a druid's Nature's Swiftness, can go on the same press as a spell.

The part in square brackets is a condition. [@mouseover] means on whatever my mouse is over. [mod:shift] means while I'm holding Shift. The builder writes these for you, and the checker flags a misspelled one.

The first line

Almost every macro starts with #showtooltip. It tells the button to show the icon, the cooldown and the tooltip of the spell the macro is about to cast. Pick the question-mark icon when you make the macro and #showtooltip fills it in.

Three you'll see everywhere

Heal whoever my mouse is over

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead] Lesser Heal; Lesser Heal

Hover a party member's frame and press the key, and the heal goes to them without changing your target. If your mouse isn't over a living friendly target, it heals your target as usual. Works with any heal.

Send the pet in and mark the target

#showtooltip Hunter's Mark
/petattack
/cast Hunter's Mark

Your pet goes for your target and Hunter's Mark goes up in the same press. /petattack isn't a spell, so the two don't fight over the cooldown. Hunters press this at the start of every fight.

Frostbolt, or Fire Blast while holding Shift

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Fire Blast; Frostbolt

Press it for Frostbolt. Hold Shift and press it for Fire Blast. The icon on your bar changes while Shift is down, because #showtooltip follows the same rule as the cast line.

What it can't do

A macro doesn't watch your health, your cooldowns or the fight. It can't cast two spells at once or choose the better one for you. It does the same thing each press. The next page goes through what that rules out.

Limits on this page (120 and 30 macros, 16-character names, 255 characters of text) are from the interface files of the Forever beta client, build 1.60.1.70009. If a later build changes them, this page will too.