time.sleep
Pause the program for the given number of seconds.
Python 3.13
time.sleep(secs)Parameters
- secsint | float
- The length of the pause in seconds; a float such as 0.5 works too.
Return value
Nothing (None).
Examples
A one-second pause
Python 3.13
import time
print('Start')
time.sleep(1)
print('One second later')Start One second later
Countdown
Python 3.13
import time
for second in range(3, 0, -1):
print(second)
time.sleep(0.5)
print('Go!')3 2 1 Go!
Details
During the pause, the current thread does nothing. In asynchronous code, use await asyncio.sleep(...) instead, otherwise all tasks stop. In the sandbox on this page, the output appears all at once after the program finishes, so the pauses between lines are not visible.