WoW Auto-Loot, Auto-Dismount & Interface Automation

World of Warcraft has a long list of small conveniences that start with "auto": auto loot, auto dismount, auto run, a random-mount button, a sell-all-junk button. Players often assume more is automated than really is, and old guides mix up built-in options, addons and things that are simply not allowed. This glossary sorts them out.

Two rules apply to everything below. First, the game only automates small interface steps; anything that plays for you, such as fighting, gathering or trading without you pressing keys, breaks Blizzard's rules on automation software. Second, versions differ: retail (Midnight) has gained many built-in helpers over the years that Classic Era and the Anniversary realms don't have.

Term	Built into the game?	Retail (Midnight)	Classic Era / TBC Anniversary
Auto loot	Yes	Yes, plus area looting	Yes, one corpse at a time
Loot filtering	No	Addons	Addons
Auto dismount	Yes	Yes	Yes (Classic Era since 2021)
Auto mount	Partly	Random favorite mount button	Macros or addons
Auto equip	No	Equipment Manager sets, addons	Addons
Auto gather	No	Interact key, gathering from some forms and mounts	Manual
Auto sell	Partly	Sell All Junk button	Addons
Auto invite	No	Addons, keyword invites	Addons
Auto trade	No	Not allowed	Not allowed
Auto potion	No	Reminders only	Reminders only
Auction alerts	Partly	Mail, favorites, addons	Mail, addons

Auto loot

Auto loot takes everything you are allowed to loot from a corpse in one click, without opening the loot window. It is a setting (Auto Loot, in the game's control options; stored in the console variable autoLootDefault) and is off by default on a new account. Holding the auto-loot key, Shift by default, while you right-click reverses the setting for that one corpse: with auto loot off, Shift-click loots everything; with it on, Shift-click opens the normal window.

Auto loot has existed since patch 1.9 of the original game, so it works in every version. Retail adds area looting, introduced with Mists of Pandaria (patch 5.0.4): looting one corpse also collects loot from all nearby corpses you have rights to. Classic Era and TBC Anniversary don't have it, so farming there still means one click per corpse.

Auto loot never bypasses group loot rules. In a group, items above the loot threshold still go to a roll or the loot master; auto loot only speeds up what is already yours.

Auto-loot filtering

Loot filtering means picking up only some items, for example skipping grey junk or keeping only cloth and herbs, and leaving or destroying the rest. The default interface has no loot filter: auto loot takes everything.

Players who want filtering use addons that apply rules after looting (deleting or marking items) or that replace the loot window. In retail the need is smaller than it used to be, because the Sell All Junk button clears grey items at any vendor and bag space has grown. In Classic, where bags are small and every slot counts during long farming sessions, filter and auto-sell addons are much more common.

Auto dismount

Auto dismount takes you off your mount automatically when you cast a spell or interact with something, instead of showing a "You are mounted" error. In retail it is on by default (console variable autoDismount).

Classic Era received the same behaviour in 2021 (patch 1.14), together with auto stand (casting while sitting stands you up) and auto unshift (leaving a shapeshift form when an action needs it). Blizzard noted it originally came from The Burning Crusade, so TBC Anniversary realms have it too.

Flying is handled separately. A second setting, autoDismountFlying, makes you dismount when you cast while flying; it is off by default so that a misclick in the air doesn't drop you to your death. Turn it on only if you often cast right after landing.

Auto mount

Auto mount means summoning the right mount for where you are with one button, instead of picking from your collection each time. Retail has a built-in version: the Summon Random Favorite Mount button at the top right of the Mounts tab of the Collections window, added in patch 6.0.2 together with favorites. Right-click mounts to mark them as favorites, drag the button to an action bar, and it summons a random favorite that can be used in your current area: ground mounts where you can't fly, flying mounts where you can. If no favorite fits, you get the error "You have no valid favorite mounts".

Macros go further with conditionals:

• [flyable] and [advflyable] check whether flying or Skyriding is allowed in the zone;
• [swimming], [indoors] and [outdoors] handle water and buildings;
• [mounted] lets one key both mount and dismount;
• [mod:shift] lets a modifier force a different choice, such as a ground mount near a mailbox.

Addons such as LiteMount, maintained since 2011 and updated for Midnight, add rules by zone, class, specialization or modifier and handle druid travel forms. In Classic Era and TBC Anniversary, mounts are items in your bags rather than a collection, so auto-mount there relies on item macros or Classic-specific addons. WoW Forever handles mounts in the Burning Crusade way: the mount comes with the riding training rather than as a separate purchase.

Auto equip

Auto equip is a common search term, but the game doesn't equip upgrades by itself. Equipping is always your click or an action you set up. What does exist:

• Equipment Manager (retail, since patch 3.1.2): save complete gear sets in the character window and switch between them with one click or a macro, for example a tanking and a damage set.
• Upgrade markers from addons: addons such as Pawn compare items using stat weights and mark upgrades in your bags and in loot windows.
• Automatic set switching from addons: some addons swap your saved set when you change specialization.

Classic Era and TBC Anniversary don't have the Equipment Manager, so gear-set addons fill that gap there. Whichever tool you use, check what it compares: item level alone often picks the wrong item for your class's stat priorities.

Auto gather

Auto gather describes ways to collect herbs, ore and skins faster. Fully automatic gathering, where a program moves your character between nodes, is botting and gets accounts banned. The legitimate shortcuts are:

• Interact key (retail, patch 10.0): one key, F by default, interacts with the highlighted object or NPC in front of you, so you don't need to click small nodes.
• Gathering without dismounting: druids can pick herbs in Flight Form, and the Sky Golem mount lets herbalists gather without dismounting. Players report the Sky Golem doesn't work on herbs from the newest expansions, only older zones.
• Node addons: map addons record where nodes spawn so you can plan a route.
• Auto loot so each node empties in one click.

In Classic Era and TBC Anniversary, gathering is mostly manual: plan on dismounting at every node. For the general idea of nodes see resource nodes.

Auto sell

Auto sell means selling junk to a vendor without clicking each item. Retail has a built-in button: Sell All Junk, added to the vendor window in patch 10.1.7 (September 2023), sells every grey (poor-quality) item at once. Next to it, the anvil button repairs all your gear; there is no built-in automatic repair.

Classic Era and TBC Anniversary have no sell-all button, so most players install an addon that sells greys and repairs automatically when a vendor window opens; Leatrix Plus and Scrap are common choices. Check what an addon is set to sell: some can also sell white items from a list, and selling a wrong item by accident can only be undone through the vendor's buyback tab before you log out or it scrolls away.

Auto group invite

Auto group invite means inviting players or accepting invitations without doing it by hand. Built-in, there are only commands: /invite PlayerName (short form /inv) invites a player, and the party leader or a raid assistant can use it.

Automatic inviting comes from addons. The classic setup invites anyone who whispers a keyword ("inv" for a raid or a farming group), and some addons accept invites from friends or guild members automatically. Retail's Premade Group Finder once had an auto-accept option for listed groups; Blizzard removed automatic group creation in Battle for Azeroth (patch 8.0.1), so today addons emulate it. On the Anniversary realms the Looking for Group interface lets you list or browse groups manually.

Spamming a keyword invite in trade or global channels can get reported as spam, so keep it to guild or group-finder use. See also LFG and LFM.

Auto trade

Auto trade doesn't exist in WoW. Every trade goes through the trade window, which needs both players to act:

• each player places items and gold on their side, and an extra "will not be traded" slot holds an item for services such as enchanting;
• both players press Trade; if either side changes anything, both confirmations are cleared;
• offering gold asks for an extra confirmation.

Soulbound loot can still be traded for a short time to players who were eligible for it in the same instance: 4 hours in retail (extended from 2 hours in patch 10.1) and 2 hours in Classic Era, where it applies to raid loot only. Addons can fill in trade windows for repeated exchanges, but unattended trading, a character that trades while nobody is at the keyboard, counts as automation and is against Blizzard's rules.

Auto-use potion

No addon can drink a potion for you: using items is a protected action that needs your key press, in every version of the game. "Auto potion" in guides means one of three legitimate things:

• Reminders: a sound or a flashing icon when your health is low or when a burst window starts;
• Macros: one key that uses a potion together with an off-global-cooldown ability, so you press one button for two actions you would press anyway;
• Bar setup: the healing potion and Healthstone on large, easy keys.

Cooldowns differ by version. In retail, since Shadowlands (patch 9.0.1), potions have a 5-minute cooldown that runs during combat, which ended the old pattern of one potion per fight starting its cooldown only after combat; Healthstones have their own cooldown, separate from healing potions since patch 8.0.1. In retail Midnight, combat addons also lost much of their ability to read combat data in patch 12.0, so health-based reminders increasingly come from Blizzard's own interface rather than from addons such as WeakAuras, which did not release a Midnight version.

Auction alert

An auction alert is any notice about the Auction House: the mail you get when an auction sells, or an addon warning that an item you want is listed below your price. The built-in signals are basic:

• Sales arrive by mail. When an auction sells, the gold goes to your mailbox with a statement of the sale price, the house cut and your returned deposit. Expired auctions and outbid refunds come by mail too.
• Favorites (retail, since the patch 8.3 Auction House redesign): right-click items to favorite them and search all favorites at once.
• Buyer names (retail, since patch 9.0.1) appear on sold auctions.

Retail auction rules that every alert strategy has to account for: auctions run for 12, 24 or 48 hours; the house keeps 5% of the sale; the deposit, based on the item's vendor price, is lost if the item doesn't sell. Since patch 9.2.7, commodities (herbs, ore, gems, consumables and similar stackable goods) share one market across all realms in a region, while gear is still sold per realm. In Classic versions the Auction House is split by faction, with a neutral goblin Auction House that takes a much bigger cut.

Real price alerts come from addons such as TradeSkillMaster and Auctionator, which scan the Auction House, compare listings with price data and flag deals. TradeSkillMaster has been updated for Midnight.

Auction sniping

Auction sniping is buying underpriced items the moment they are listed, before other players see them, usually to resell them at the normal price. It is built on auction alerts:

• TradeSkillMaster's Sniper repeats a search for items in your groups listed below a maximum price you set; on retail its documentation describes a 30-second delay between searches.
• For Auctionator, separate add-ons do the same job: one keeps scanning items on a shopping list, another lists items cheaper than the materials you would get from disenchanting them.

Sniping only pays if the buy price plus the 5% house cut, and any deposit when you relist, stays well under what the item really sells for. On retail commodities, where every realm in the region shares one market, mispriced listings disappear within seconds, so most snipers focus on realm-specific items such as gear, pets and transmog. Players who would rather buy gold than flip auctions can see our WoW gold offers.

Auto-move (auto run)

Auto run keeps your character moving forward without holding a key. The Autorun keybind is Num Lock by default on Windows and Clear on a Mac; pressing it again, or pressing forward or back, stops it, while turning and strafing don't. /follow makes you follow another player who stays within about 28 yards. The full article covers mouse steering, click-to-move and multiboxing use: Auto-move.

FAQ

Is auto loot on by default in WoW?

No. Turn on Auto Loot in the control options, or hold Shift while right-clicking a corpse to loot everything once.

Can I get banned for using auto-loot or auto-sell addons?

Not for interface addons that act when you click or open a window. Bans are for software that plays without you: bots that move, fight, gather or trade on their own.

Why doesn't my random favorite mount button work?

None of your favorites can be used in the area. Add at least one ground mount to your favorites.

Is there a sell-all-junk button in Classic?

Not in Classic Era or TBC Anniversary; it was added to retail in patch 10.1.7. Use an addon there.

Related WoW terms

• Targeting, assist & swing timer terms · Auto-cast toggle
• Classic realm types · Arcanite bars
• Keybinds · Transmog in the general gaming terms