How to detect when mouse is being held down?

I looked everywhere for solutions to the titled question but none of them would work. The latest I tried was using tick() but it does not do well and it doesn't record holding down correctly for me.

I am looking for a way to detect the mouse being held down and not simply being clicked, left mouse button.

EDIT: By held down, I DON'T mean by clicking, but when you hold it down longer than a simple click.

You can achieve what you want by using the event MouseButton1Down which fires when you push down the left mouse button and stops when you release the left mouse button. This method can only be used with TextButtons and ImageButtons.

If you want to achieve this you will do:

local down
local player = game.Players.LocalPlayer
local mouse = player:GetMouse()

mouse.Button1Down:connect(function()
	down = true
	mouse.Button1Up:connect(function()
		down = false
	end)
	while wait(.5) do
		if down == true then
			print('Plr is holding mouse')
		else
			break
		end
	end
end)

You’ll have to incorporate both the Mouse.Button1Down and mouse.Button1Up functions and check the time between these two consecutive events:

local Player = game.Players.LocalPlayer
local Mouse = Player:GetMouse()
local QualifyingTime = 0.4 -- If the button is held down for this long, it qualifies as held

-- Make an event just for a better way to listen for the button being held down
local Button1Held = Instance.new("BindableEvent")

Mouse.Button1Down:Connect(function()
    local HeldButton = tick()
    local LeftButton
    coroutine.wrap(function() -- Update leftButton when the button is left
        Mouse.Button1Up:Wait()
        LeftButton = tick()
    end)()
    wait(QualifyingTime)
    -- If LeftButton is still nil, the mouse has been held long enough to qualify as held
    if not LeftButton then
        Button1Held:Fire()
    end
end)

-- Just connect to our bindable event
Button1Held.Event:Connect(function()
    -- ...
end)

Tick() is a good way to go about this and usually the thing I default to for this kind of mechanic. Basically we can use it to compare the change in time when it crosses some time interval.

All we need is to make a timer to let us know that we can do something after 'X' seconds:

local RunService = game:GetService("RunService")

local timeInterval = 1.5 --Our interval for this 'timer' in seconds

local startTime = tick()

while true do
	local currTime = tick()
	local deltaTime = currTime - startTime --This is the change in time

	if deltaTime > timeInterval then
		print("Stop!") --After 1.5 seconds, this loop will break and print Stop!
		break
	end 

	RunService.Heartbeat:Wait() --Keep our loop from crashing. Look this function up.
end

I think the main issue you're running into is not with the above explanation but more of how to implement this using mouse input. Fortunately, we can use ContextActionService to bind our mouse inputs.

We can use the :BindAction function of this service to bind simple input for our left mouse button. Taking a look at its documentation, it tells us that it provides three useful parameters whenever the bounded action does happen. This is the action name that we gave it, the state of that input, and the information of the input object.

We need the state of the action to see whether the input had just began or has just ended. We can make a sort of switch to help us get what we want.

local ContextActionService = game:GetService("ContextActionService")


local function MouseInput(actionName, inputState, inputObject)
	if inputState == Enum.UserInputState.Begin then
		print("Mouse left was pushed!")
	elseif inputState == Enum.UserInputState.End then
		print("Mouse left was released!")
	end
end

ContextActionService:BindAction("mouseInput", MouseInput, false, Enum.UserInputType.MouseButton1)

The rest is as simple as bringing in the loop we had made earlier. In my case, I just want to call a function that will do that for me to keep things readable.

local ContextActionService = game:GetService("ContextActionService")
local RunService = game:GetService("RunService")

local timeInterval = 1.5 

local isLeftButtonDown = false

local function onMouseHeld()
	local startTime = tick()

	--We make sure left button is still held down
	while isLeftButtonDown do
		local currTime = tick()
		local deltaTime = currTime - startTime 

		if deltaTime > timeInterval then
			print("Mouse was held long enough")
			break
		end 

		RunService.Heartbeat:Wait()
	end
end

local function MouseInput(actionName, inputState, inputObject)
	if inputState == Enum.UserInputState.Begin then
		isLeftButtonDown = true
		onMouseHeld()
	elseif inputState == Enum.UserInputState.End then
		isLeftButtonDown = false
	end
end

ContextActionService:BindAction("mouseInput", MouseInput, false, Enum.UserInputType.MouseButton1)

The only thing to explain is the use of a global variable. We use this for the condition in the while loop to make sure the player doesn't let go before those 1.5 seconds.

And that should be the end of it. Hopefully what I've written is what you wanted since it's what I understood. Inside of line 17 is where you'd want to run your own code whenever the player holds their left mouse button for 'x' seconds.

####Let me know if you need something explained or if I had missed anything

This is a very simple code to achieve what i think u want.

plr = game.Players.LocalPlayer
mouse = plr:GetMouse()
howlong = 5--how long u need to hold down
hold = nil
holding = 0
--variables

function whatever()
	print("holding for "..holding.."seconds")
end
--function that launches when u hold for howlong

mouse.MouseButton1Down:Connect(function()
	hold = true--if mouse is held down
	while hold do
		holding = holding + 1--adds a second every second
		if holding >= howlong then
			whatever()--launch the function
		end
		wait(1)
	end
end)


mouse.MouseButton1Down:Connect(function()
	hold = false -- if mouse if not held down
	holding = 0 --resets the count
end)

Make sure to accept if this helped.