Combination of async function + await + setTimeout

Your sleep function does not work because setTimeout does not (yet?) return a promise that could be awaited. You will need to promisify it manually:

function timeout(ms) {
    return new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, ms));
}
async function sleep(fn, ...args) {
    await timeout(3000);
    return fn(...args);
}

Btw, to slow down your loop you probably don't want to use a sleep function that takes a callback and defers it like this. I recommend:

while (goOn) {
  // other code
  var [parents] = await Promise.all([
      listFiles(nextPageToken).then(requestParents),
      timeout(5000)
  ]);
  // other code
}

which lets the computation of parents take at least 5 seconds.

The quick one-liner, inline way

 await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 1000));

Since Node 7.6, you can combine the functions promisify function from the utils module with setTimeout() .

Node.js

const sleep = require('util').promisify(setTimeout)

Javascript

const sleep = m => new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, m))

Usage

(async () => {
    console.time("Slept for")
    await sleep(3000)
    console.timeEnd("Slept for")
})()

setTimeout is not an async function, so you can't use it with ES7 async-await. But you could implement your sleep function using ES6 Promise:

function sleep (fn, par) {
  return new Promise((resolve) => {
    // wait 3s before calling fn(par)
    setTimeout(() => resolve(fn(par)), 3000)
  })
}

Then you'll be able to use this new sleep function with ES7 async-await:

var fileList = await sleep(listFiles, nextPageToken)

Please, note that I'm only answering your question about combining ES7 async/await with setTimeout, though it may not help solve your problem with sending too many requests per second.

Update: Modern node.js versions has a buid-in async timeout implementation, accessible via util.promisify helper:

const {promisify} = require('util');
const setTimeoutAsync = promisify(setTimeout);

Timers Promises API

await setTimeout finally arrived with Node.js 16, removing the need to use util.promisify():

import { setTimeout } from 'timers/promises';

(async () => {
  const result = await setTimeout(2000, 'resolved')
  // Executed after 2 seconds
  console.log(result); // "resolved"
})()

Official Node.js docs: Timers Promises API (library already built in Node)

If you would like to use the same kind of syntax as setTimeout you can write a helper function like this:

const setAsyncTimeout = (cb, timeout = 0) => new Promise(resolve => {
    setTimeout(() => {
        cb();
        resolve();
    }, timeout);
});

You can then call it like so:

const doStuffAsync = async () => {
    await setAsyncTimeout(() => {
        // Do stuff
    }, 1000);

    await setAsyncTimeout(() => {
        // Do more stuff
    }, 500);

    await setAsyncTimeout(() => {
        // Do even more stuff
    }, 2000);
};

doStuffAsync();

I made a gist: https://gist.github.com/DaveBitter/f44889a2a52ad16b6a5129c39444bb57

var testAwait = function () {
    var promise = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        setTimeout(() => {
            resolve('Inside test await');
        }, 1000);
    });
    return promise;
}

var asyncFunction = async function() {
    await testAwait().then((data) => {
        console.log(data);
    })
    return 'hello asyncFunction';
}

asyncFunction().then((data) => {
    console.log(data);
});

//Inside test await
//hello asyncFunction

await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(() => { resolve({ data: 'your return data'}) }, 1000))

I leave this code snippet here for someone who wants to fetch API call (e.g. get clients) with setTimeout:

const { data } = await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 250)).then(() => getClientsService())
setName(data.name || '')
setEmail(data.email || '')

This is my version with nodejs now in 2020 in AWS labdas

const sleep = require('util').promisify(setTimeout)

async function f1 (some){
...
}

async function f2 (thing){
...
}

module.exports.someFunction = async event => {
    ...
    await f1(some)
    await sleep(5000)
    await f2(thing)
    ...
}

await setTimeout(()=>{}, 200);

Will work if your Node version is 15 and above.

Made a util inspired from Dave's answer

Basically passed in a done callback to call when the operation is finished.

// Function to timeout if a request is taking too long
const setAsyncTimeout = (cb, timeout = 0) => new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
  cb(resolve);
  setTimeout(() => reject('Request is taking too long to response'), timeout);
});

This is how I use it:

try {
  await setAsyncTimeout(async done => {
    const requestOne = await someService.post(configs);
    const requestTwo = await someService.get(configs);
    const requestThree = await someService.post(configs);
    done();
  }, 5000); // 5 seconds max for this set of operations
}
catch (err) {
  console.error('[Timeout] Unable to complete the operation.', err);
}

The following code works in Chrome and Firefox and maybe other browsers.

function timeout(ms) {
    return new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, ms));
}
async function sleep(fn, ...args) {
    await timeout(3000);
    return fn(...args);
}

But in Internet Explorer I get a Syntax Error for the "(resolve **=>** setTimeout..."

How to Log all the responses at once?

async function sayHello(name) {
  let greet = `Hey! ${name} very nice to meet you bud.`;
  setTimeout(() => {
    return {
      greet,
      createdAt: new Date(),
    };
  }, 1000);
}

const response1 = async () => await sayHello("sounish");
const response2 = async () => await sayHello("alex");
const response3 = async () => await sayHello("bill");

async function getData() {
  const data1 = await sayHello("sounish");
  const data2 = await sayHello("alex");
  const data3 = await sayHello("bill");
  return { data1, data2, data3 };
}

Promise.all([sayHello("sounish"), sayHello("alex"), sayHello("bill")]).then(
  (allResponses) => {
    console.log({ allResponses });
  }
);

getData().then((allData) => {
  console.log({ allData });
});

This is a quicker fix in one-liner.

Hope this will help.

// WAIT FOR 200 MILISECONDS TO GET DATA //
await setTimeout(()=>{}, 200);