How to Use Progress Bars in Python with Progress, tqdm, alive-progress, and PySimpleGUI

If you have never used a progress bar, you might think it adds unnecessary complexity, but in reality it only requires a few lines of code. This guide shows how to add progress bars in command‑line scripts and PySimpleGUI UI.

Four commonly used Python progress‑bar libraries are introduced: Progress , tqdm , alive‑progress , and PySimpleGUI .

Progress – Define the number of iterations, bar type, and update the bar each iteration. Example code:

<code>import time
from progress.bar import IncrementalBar
mylist = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
bar = IncrementalBar('Countdown', max=len(mylist))
for item in mylist:
    bar.next()
    time.sleep(1)
    bar.finish()
</code>

The resulting incremental progress bar looks like this:

tqdm – Similar usage with a slightly different API. Example code:

<code>import time
from tqdm import tqdm
mylist = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
for i in tqdm(mylist):
    time.sleep(1)
</code>

The progress bar produced by tqdm appears as follows:

alive‑progress – Provides animated, more lively progress bars. Example code:

<code>from alive_progress import alive_bar
import time
mylist = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
with alive_bar(len(mylist)) as bar:
    for i in mylist:
        bar()
        time.sleep(1)
</code>

Animated output looks like this:

PySimpleGUI – Enables graphical progress meters in a windowed UI. Example code for a simple one‑line progress meter:

<code>import PySimpleGUI as sg
import time
mylist = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
for i, item in enumerate(mylist):
    sg.one_line_progress_meter('This is my progress meter!', i+1, len(mylist), '-key-')
    time.sleep(1)
</code>

For a full‑featured PySimpleGUI application with a progress bar widget, use the following code:

<code>import PySimpleGUI as sg
import time
mylist = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
progressbar = [[sg.ProgressBar(len(mylist), orientation='h', size=(51,10), key='progressbar')]]
outputwin = [[sg.Output(size=(78,20))]]
layout = [
    [sg.Frame('Progress', layout=progressbar)],
    [sg.Frame('Output', layout=outputwin)],
    [sg.Submit('Start'), sg.Cancel()]
]
window = sg.Window('Custom Progress Meter', layout)
progress_bar = window['progressbar']
while True:
    event, values = window.read(timeout=10)
    if event == 'Cancel' or event is None:
        break
    elif event == 'Start':
        for i, item in enumerate(mylist):
            print(item)
            time.sleep(1)
            progress_bar.UpdateBar(i+1)
window.close()
</code>

Running this script displays a graphical window with a progress bar that updates as the loop progresses.

In summary, adding a progress bar to a Python script is straightforward and greatly improves visibility into script execution.