Text progress bar in terminal with block characters

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?

Python 3

A Simple, Customizable Progress Bar

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

Note: All code in this answer was created for Python 3; see end of answer to use this code with Python 2.

# 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(f'\r{prefix} |{bar}| {percent}% {suffix}', end = printEnd)
    # Print New Line on Complete
    if iteration == total: 
        print()

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).

Single-Call Version of The Above

A comment below referenced a nice answer posted in response to a similar question. I liked the ease of use it demonstrated and wrote a similar one, but opted to leave out the import of the sys module while adding in some of the features of the original printProgressBar function above.

Some benefits of this approach over the original function above include the elimination of an initial call to the function to print the progress bar at 0% and the use of enumerate becoming optional (i.e. it is no longer explicitly required to make the function work).

def progressBar(iterable, prefix = '', suffix = '', decimals = 1, length = 100, fill = '█', printEnd = "\r"):
	"""
	Call in a loop to create terminal progress bar
	@params:
		iterable    - Required  : iterable object (Iterable)
		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)
	"""
	total = len(iterable)
	# Progress Bar Printing Function
	def printProgressBar (iteration):
		percent = ("{0:." + str(decimals) + "f}").format(100 * (iteration / float(total)))
		filledLength = int(length * iteration // total)
		bar = fill * filledLength + '-' * (length - filledLength)
		print(f'\r{prefix} |{bar}| {percent}% {suffix}', end = printEnd)
	# Initial Call
	printProgressBar(0)
	# Update Progress Bar
	for i, item in enumerate(iterable):
		yield item
		printProgressBar(i + 1)
	# Print New Line on Complete
	print()

Sample Usage

import time

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

# A Nicer, Single-Call Usage
for item in progressBar(items, prefix = 'Progress:', suffix = 'Complete', length = 50):
	# Do stuff...
	time.sleep(0.1)

Sample Output

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

Python 2

To use the above functions in Python 2, set the encoding to UTF-8 at the top of your script:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

And replace the Python 3 string formatting in this line:

print(f'\r{prefix} |{bar}| {percent}% {suffix}', end = printEnd)

With Python 2 string formatting:

print('\r%s |%s| %s%% %s' % (prefix, bar, percent, suffix), end = printEnd)

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</s>

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% ] ===================

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]

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

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.

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

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

• 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

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)

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()

The python module progressbar is a nice choice. Here is my typical code:

import time
import progressbar

widgets = [
    ' ', progressbar.Percentage(),
    ' ', progressbar.SimpleProgress(format='(%(value_s)s of %(max_value_s)s)'),
    ' ', progressbar.Bar('>', fill='.'),
    ' ', progressbar.ETA(format_finished='- %(seconds)s  -', format='ETA: %(seconds)s', ),
    ' - ', progressbar.DynamicMessage('loss'),
    ' - ', progressbar.DynamicMessage('error'),
    '                          '
]

bar = progressbar.ProgressBar(redirect_stdout=True, widgets=widgets)
bar.start(100)
for i in range(100):
    time.sleep(0.1)
    bar.update(i + 1, loss=i / 100., error=i)
bar.finish()

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))

Here's my Python 3 solution:

import time
for i in range(100):
    time.sleep(1)
    s = "{}% Complete".format(i)
    print(s,end=len(s) * '\b')

'\b' is a backslash, for each character in your string. This does not work within the Windows cmd window.

function from Greenstick for 2.7:

def printProgressBar (iteration, total, prefix = '', suffix = '',decimals = 1, length = 100, fill = '#'):

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),
sys.stdout.flush()
# Print New Line on Complete                                                                                                                                                                                                              
if iteration == total:
    print()

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/progressbar2/3.30.2

Progressbar2 is a good library for ascii base progressbar for the command line import time import progressbar

bar = progressbar.ProgressBar()
for i in bar(range(100)):
    time.sleep(0.02)
bar.finish()

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/tqdm

tqdm is a alternative of progressbar2 and i think it use in pip3 but i am not sure of that

from tqdm import tqdm
for i in tqdm(range(10000)):
...