I wrote a simple console app to upload and download files from an FTP server using the ftplib.

I would like the app to show some visualization of its download/upload progress for the user; each time a data chunk is downloaded, I would like it to provide a progress update, even if it’s just a numeric representation like a percentage.

Importantly, I want to avoid erasing all the text that’s been printed to the console in previous lines (i.e. I don’t want to “clear” the entire terminal while printing the updated progress).

This seems a fairly common task – how can I go about making a progress bar or similar visualization that outputs to my console while preserving prior program output?

A Simple, Customizable Progress Bar

Here’s an aggregate of many of the answers below that I use regularly (no imports required).

# Print iterations progress
def printProgressBar (iteration, total, prefix = '', suffix = '', decimals = 1, length = 100, fill = '█', printEnd = "\r"):
    """
    Call in a loop to create terminal progress bar
    @params:
        iteration   - Required  : current iteration (Int)
        total       - Required  : total iterations (Int)
        prefix      - Optional  : prefix string (Str)
        suffix      - Optional  : suffix string (Str)
        decimals    - Optional  : positive number of decimals in percent complete (Int)
        length      - Optional  : character length of bar (Int)
        fill        - Optional  : bar fill character (Str)
        printEnd    - Optional  : end character (e.g. "\r", "\r\n") (Str)
    """
    percent = ("{0:." + str(decimals) + "f}").format(100 * (iteration / float(total)))
    filledLength = int(length * iteration // total)
    bar = fill * filledLength + '-' * (length - filledLength)
    print('\r%s |%s| %s%% %s' % (prefix, bar, percent, suffix), end = printEnd)
    # Print New Line on Complete
    if iteration == total: 
        print()

Note: This is for Python 3; see the comments for details on using this in Python 2.

Sample Usage

import time

# A List of Items
items = list(range(0, 57))
l = len(items)

# Initial call to print 0% progress
printProgressBar(0, l, prefix = 'Progress:', suffix = 'Complete', length = 50)
for i, item in enumerate(items):
    # Do stuff...
    time.sleep(0.1)
    # Update Progress Bar
    printProgressBar(i + 1, l, prefix = 'Progress:', suffix = 'Complete', length = 50)

Sample Output:

Progress: |█████████████████████████████████████████████-----| 90.0% Complete

Update

There was discussion in the comments regarding an option that allows the progress bar to adjust dynamically to the terminal window width. While I don’t recommend this, here’s a gist that implements this feature (and notes the caveats).

Writing ‘\r’ will move the cursor back to the beginning of the line.

This displays a percentage counter:

import time
import sys

for i in range(100):
    time.sleep(1)
    sys.stdout.write("\r%d%%" % i)
    sys.stdout.flush()

tqdm: add a progress meter to your loops in a second:

>>> import time
>>> from tqdm import tqdm
>>> for i in tqdm(range(100)):
...     time.sleep(1)
... 
|###-------| 35/100  35% [elapsed: 00:35 left: 01:05,  1.00 iters/sec]

Write a \r to the console. That is a “carriage return” which causes all text after it to be echoed at the beginning of the line. Something like:

def update_progress(progress):
    print '\r[{0}] {1}%'.format('#'*(progress/10), progress)

which will give you something like: [ ########## ] 100%

It is less than 10 lines of code.

The gist here: https://gist.github.com/vladignatyev/06860ec2040cb497f0f3

import sys


def progress(count, total, suffix=''):
    bar_len = 60
    filled_len = int(round(bar_len * count / float(total)))

    percents = round(100.0 * count / float(total), 1)
    bar = '=' * filled_len + '-' * (bar_len - filled_len)

    sys.stdout.write('[%s] %s%s ...%s\r' % (bar, percents, '%', suffix))
    sys.stdout.flush()  # As suggested by Rom Ruben

Try the click library written by the Mozart of Python, Armin Ronacher.

$ pip install click # both 2 and 3 compatible

To create a simple progress bar:

import click

with click.progressbar(range(1000000)) as bar:
    for i in bar:
        pass 

This is what it looks like:

# [###-------------------------------]    9%  00:01:14

Customize to your hearts content:

import click, sys

with click.progressbar(range(100000), file=sys.stderr, show_pos=True, width=70, bar_template='(_(_)=%(bar)sD(_(_| %(info)s', fill_char='=', empty_char=' ') as bar:
    for i in bar:
        pass

Custom look:

(_(_)===================================D(_(_| 100000/100000 00:00:02

There are even more options, see the API docs:

 click.progressbar(iterable=None, length=None, label=None, show_eta=True, show_percent=None, show_pos=False, item_show_func=None, fill_char='#', empty_char='-', bar_template='%(label)s [%(bar)s] %(info)s', info_sep=' ', width=36, file=None, color=None)

I realize I’m late to the game, but here’s a slightly Yum-style (Red Hat) one I wrote (not going for 100% accuracy here, but if you’re using a progress bar for that level of accuracy, then you’re WRONG anyway):

import sys

def cli_progress_test(end_val, bar_length=20):
    for i in xrange(0, end_val):
        percent = float(i) / end_val
        hashes = '#' * int(round(percent * bar_length))
        spaces = ' ' * (bar_length - len(hashes))
        sys.stdout.write("\rPercent: [{0}] {1}%".format(hashes + spaces, int(round(percent * 100))))
        sys.stdout.flush()

Should produce something looking like this:

Percent: [##############      ] 69%

… where the brackets stay stationary and only the hashes increase.

This might work better as a decorator. For another day…

Check this library: clint

it has a lot of features including a progress bar:

from time import sleep  
from random import random  
from clint.textui import progress  
if __name__ == '__main__':
    for i in progress.bar(range(100)):
        sleep(random() * 0.2)

    for i in progress.dots(range(100)):
        sleep(random() * 0.2)

this link provides a quick overview of its features

Here’s a nice example of a progressbar written in Python: http://nadiana.com/animated-terminal-progress-bar-in-python

But if you want to write it yourself. You could use the curses module to make things easier :)

[edit] Perhaps easier is not the word for curses. But if you want to create a full-blown cui than curses takes care of a lot of stuff for you.

[edit] Since the old link is dead I have put up my own version of a Python Progressbar, get it here: https://github.com/WoLpH/python-progressbar

import time,sys

for i in range(100+1):
    time.sleep(0.1)
    sys.stdout.write(('='*i)+(''*(100-i))+("\r [ %d"%i+"% ] "))
    sys.stdout.flush()

output

[ 29% ] ===================

and, just to add to the pile, here’s an object you can use

import sys

class ProgressBar(object):
    DEFAULT_BAR_LENGTH = 65
    DEFAULT_CHAR_ON  = '='
    DEFAULT_CHAR_OFF = ' '

    def __init__(self, end, start=0):
        self.end    = end
        self.start  = start
        self._barLength = self.__class__.DEFAULT_BAR_LENGTH

        self.setLevel(self.start)
        self._plotted = False

    def setLevel(self, level):
        self._level = level
        if level < self.start:  self._level = self.start
        if level > self.end:    self._level = self.end

        self._ratio = float(self._level - self.start) / float(self.end - self.start)
        self._levelChars = int(self._ratio * self._barLength)

    def plotProgress(self):
        sys.stdout.write("\r  %3i%% [%s%s]" %(
            int(self._ratio * 100.0),
            self.__class__.DEFAULT_CHAR_ON  * int(self._levelChars),
            self.__class__.DEFAULT_CHAR_OFF * int(self._barLength - self._levelChars),
        ))
        sys.stdout.flush()
        self._plotted = True

    def setAndPlot(self, level):
        oldChars = self._levelChars
        self.setLevel(level)
        if (not self._plotted) or (oldChars != self._levelChars):
            self.plotProgress()

    def __add__(self, other):
        assert type(other) in [float, int], "can only add a number"
        self.setAndPlot(self._level + other)
        return self
    def __sub__(self, other):
        return self.__add__(-other)
    def __iadd__(self, other):
        return self.__add__(other)
    def __isub__(self, other):
        return self.__add__(-other)

    def __del__(self):
        sys.stdout.write("\n")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    import time
    count = 150
    print "starting things:"

    pb = ProgressBar(count)

    #pb.plotProgress()
    for i in range(0, count):
        pb += 1
        #pb.setAndPlot(i + 1)
        time.sleep(0.01)
    del pb

    print "done"

results in:

starting things:
  100% [=================================================================]
done

This would most commonly be considered to be “over the top”, but it’s handy when you’re using it a lot

Install tqdm.(pip install tqdm) and use it as follows:

import time
from tqdm import tqdm
for i in tqdm(range(1000)):
    time.sleep(0.01)

That’s a 10 seconds progress bar that’ll output something like this:

47%|██████████████████▊                     | 470/1000 [00:04<00:05, 98.61it/s]

Run this at the Python command line (not in any IDE or development environment):

>>> import threading
>>> for i in range(50+1):
...   threading._sleep(0.5)
...   print "\r%3d" % i, ('='*i)+('-'*(50-i)),

Works fine on my Windows system.

• http://code.activestate.com/recipes/168639-progress-bar-class/ (2002)
• http://code.activestate.com/recipes/299207-console-text-progress-indicator-class/ (2004)
• http://pypi.python.org/pypi/progressbar (2006)

And a lot of tutorials waiting to be googled.

I am using progress from reddit. I like it because it can print progress for every item in one line, and it shouldn’t erase printouts from the program.

Edit: fixed link

Try to install this package: pip install progressbar2 :

import time
import progressbar

for i in progressbar.progressbar(range(100)):
    time.sleep(0.02)

progresssbar github: https://github.com/WoLpH/python-progressbar

based on the above answers and other similar questions about CLI progress bar, I think I got a general common answer to all of them. Check it at https://stackoverflow.com/a/15860757/2254146

In summary, the code is this:

import time, sys

# update_progress() : Displays or updates a console progress bar
## Accepts a float between 0 and 1. Any int will be converted to a float.
## A value under 0 represents a 'halt'.
## A value at 1 or bigger represents 100%
def update_progress(progress):
    barLength = 10 # Modify this to change the length of the progress bar
    status = ""
    if isinstance(progress, int):
        progress = float(progress)
    if not isinstance(progress, float):
        progress = 0
        status = "error: progress var must be float\r\n"
    if progress < 0:
        progress = 0
        status = "Halt...\r\n"
    if progress >= 1:
        progress = 1
        status = "Done...\r\n"
    block = int(round(barLength*progress))
    text = "\rPercent: [{0}] {1}% {2}".format( "#"*block + "-"*(barLength-block), progress*100, status)
    sys.stdout.write(text)
    sys.stdout.flush()

Looks like

Percent: [##########] 99.0%

I recommend using tqdm – https://pypi.python.org/pypi/tqdm – which makes it simple to turn any iterable or process into a progress bar, and handles all messing about with terminals needed.

From the documentation: “tqdm can easily support callbacks/hooks and manual updates. Here’s an example with urllib”

import urllib
from tqdm import tqdm

def my_hook(t):
  """
  Wraps tqdm instance. Don't forget to close() or __exit__()
  the tqdm instance once you're done with it (easiest using `with` syntax).

  Example
  -------

  >>> with tqdm(...) as t:
  ...     reporthook = my_hook(t)
  ...     urllib.urlretrieve(..., reporthook=reporthook)

  """
  last_b = [0]

  def inner(b=1, bsize=1, tsize=None):
    """
    b  : int, optional
        Number of blocks just transferred [default: 1].
    bsize  : int, optional
        Size of each block (in tqdm units) [default: 1].
    tsize  : int, optional
        Total size (in tqdm units). If [default: None] remains unchanged.
    """
    if tsize is not None:
        t.total = tsize
    t.update((b - last_b[0]) * bsize)
    last_b[0] = b
  return inner

eg_link = 'http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~cod11/matryoshka.zip'
with tqdm(unit='B', unit_scale=True, miniters=1,
          desc=eg_link.split('/')[-1]) as t:  # all optional kwargs
    urllib.urlretrieve(eg_link, filename='/dev/null',
                       reporthook=my_hook(t), data=None)

A very simple solution is to put this code into your loop:

Put this in the body (i.e. top) of your file:

import sys

Put this in the body of your loop:

sys.stdout.write("-") # prints a dash for each iteration of loop
sys.stdout.flush() # ensures bar is displayed incrementally

import sys
def progresssbar():
         for i in range(100):
            time.sleep(1)
            sys.stdout.write("%i\r" % i)

progressbar()

NOTE: if you run this in interactive interepter you get extra numbers printed out

lol i just wrote a whole thingy for this heres the code keep in mind you cant use unicode when doing block ascii i use cp437

import os
import time
def load(left_side, right_side, length, time):
    x = 0
    y = ""
    print "\r"
    while x < length:
        space = length - len(y)
        space = " " * space
        z = left + y + space + right
        print "\r", z,
        y += "█"
        time.sleep(time)
        x += 1
    cls()

and you call it like so

print "loading something awesome"
load("|", "|", 10, .01)

so it looks like this

loading something awesome
|█████     |

With the great advices above I work out the progress bar.

However I would like to point out some shortcomings

1. Every time the progress bar is flushed, it will start on a new line

   print('\r[{0}]{1}%'.format('#' * progress* 10, progress))  
   

   like this:
   [] 0%
   [#]10%
   [##]20%
   [###]30%

2.The square bracket ‘]’ and the percent number on the right side shift right as the ‘###’ get longer.
3. An error will occur if the expression ‘progress / 10’ can not return an integer.

And the following code will fix the problem above.

def update_progress(progress, total):  
    print('\r[{0:10}]{1:>2}%'.format('#' * int(progress * 10 /total), progress), end='')

Code for python terminal progress bar

import sys
import time

max_length = 5
at_length = max_length
empty = "-"
used = "%"

bar = empty * max_length

for i in range(0, max_length):
    at_length -= 1

    #setting empty and full spots
    bar = used * i
    bar = bar+empty * at_length

    #\r is carriage return(sets cursor position in terminal to start of line)
    #\0 character escape

    sys.stdout.write("[{}]\0\r".format(bar))
    sys.stdout.flush()

    #do your stuff here instead of time.sleep
    time.sleep(1)

sys.stdout.write("\n")
sys.stdout.flush()

i wrote a simple progressbar:

def bar(total, current, length=10, prefix="", filler="#", space=" ", oncomp="", border="[]", suffix=""):
    if len(border) != 2:
        print("parameter 'border' must include exactly 2 symbols!")
        return None

    print(prefix + border[0] + (filler * int(current / total * length) +
                                      (space * (length - int(current / total * length)))) + border[1], suffix, "\r", end="")
    if total == current:
        if oncomp:
            print(prefix + border[0] + space * int(((length - len(oncomp)) / 2)) +
                  oncomp + space * int(((length - len(oncomp)) / 2)) + border[1], suffix)
        if not oncomp:
            print(prefix + border[0] + (filler * int(current / total * length) +
                                        (space * (length - int(current / total * length)))) + border[1], suffix)

as you can see, it have: length of bar, prefix and suffix, filler, space, text in bar on 100%(oncomp) and borders

here an example:

from time import sleep, time
start_time = time()
for i in range(10):
    pref = str((i+1) * 10) + "% "
    complete_text = "done in %s sec" % str(round(time() - start_time))
    sleep(1)
    bar(10, i + 1, length=20, prefix=pref, oncomp=complete_text)

out in progress:

30% [######              ]

out on complete:

100% [   done in 9 sec   ] 

Putting together some of the ideas I found here, and adding estimated time left:

import datetime, sys

start = datetime.datetime.now()

def print_progress_bar (iteration, total):

    process_duration_samples = []
    average_samples = 5

    end = datetime.datetime.now()

    process_duration = end - start

    if len(process_duration_samples) == 0:
        process_duration_samples = [process_duration] * average_samples

    process_duration_samples = process_duration_samples[1:average_samples-1] + [process_duration]
    average_process_duration = sum(process_duration_samples, datetime.timedelta()) / len(process_duration_samples)
    remaining_steps = total - iteration
    remaining_time_estimation = remaining_steps * average_process_duration

    bars_string = int(float(iteration) / float(total) * 20.)
    sys.stdout.write(
        "\r[%-20s] %d%% (%s/%s) Estimated time left: %s" % (
            '='*bars_string, float(iteration) / float(total) * 100,
            iteration,
            total,
            remaining_time_estimation
        ) 
    )
    sys.stdout.flush()
    if iteration + 1 == total:
        print 


# Sample usage

for i in range(0,300):
    print_progress_bar(i, 300)

For python 3:

def progress_bar(current_value, total):
    increments = 50
    percentual = ((current_value/ total) * 100)
    i = int(percentual // (100 / increments ))
    text = "\r[{0: <{1}}] {2}%".format('=' * i, increments, percentual)
    print(text, end="\n" if percentual == 100 else "")

Well here is code that works and I tested it before posting:

import sys
def prg(prog, fillchar, emptchar):
    fillt = 0
    emptt = 20
    if prog < 100 and prog > 0:
        prog2 = prog/5
        fillt = fillt + prog2
        emptt = emptt - prog2
        sys.stdout.write("\r[" + str(fillchar)*fillt + str(emptchar)*emptt + "]" + str(prog) + "%")
        sys.stdout.flush()
    elif prog >= 100:
        prog = 100
        prog2 = prog/5
        fillt = fillt + prog2
        emptt = emptt - prog2
        sys.stdout.write("\r[" + str(fillchar)*fillt + str(emptchar)*emptt + "]" + str(prog) + "%" + "\nDone!")
        sys.stdout.flush()
    elif prog < 0:
        prog = 0
        prog2 = prog/5
        fillt = fillt + prog2
        emptt = emptt - prog2
        sys.stdout.write("\r[" + str(fillchar)*fillt + str(emptchar)*emptt + "]" + str(prog) + "%" + "\nHalted!")
        sys.stdout.flush()

Pros:

• 20 character bar (1 character for every 5 (number wise))
• Custom fill characters
• Custom empty characters
• Halt (any number below 0)
• Done (100 and any number above 100)
• Progress count (0-100 (below and above used for special functions))
• Percentage number next to bar, and it’s a single line

Cons:

• Supports integers only (It can be modified to support them though, by making the division an integer division, so just change prog2 = prog/5 to prog2 = int(prog/5))