Rich progress

Rich gives you three tools for progress feedback, in increasing order of customisation: track(), Progress(), and Console.status(). Start with the simplest that meets your needs.

track() — the one-liner

rich.progress.track() wraps any iterable and displays a progress bar as you consume it. The total is inferred from len() if available, or you can pass it explicitly.

from rich.progress import track
import time

results = []
for item in track(range(100), description="Processing..."):
    time.sleep(0.05)          # simulate work
    results.append(item * 2)

print(f"Done. {len(results)} results.")

That is the entire API. Wrap your iterable, name the description, iterate normally.

Progress() — custom columns

When you need more control — multiple tasks, custom columns, nested bars — use the Progress context manager directly:

from rich.progress import Progress, SpinnerColumn, BarColumn, TextColumn
import time

with Progress(
    SpinnerColumn(),
    TextColumn("[progress.description]{task.description}"),
    BarColumn(),
    TextColumn("{task.completed}/{task.total}"),
) as progress:
    task = progress.add_task("Scanning files...", total=50)
    for _ in range(50):
        time.sleep(0.05)
        progress.advance(task)

The columns you pass to Progress() are rendered in order. Rich ships with SpinnerColumn, BarColumn, TimeRemainingColumn, FileSizeColumn, and more.

Console.status() — spinner for unknown durations

When the total is unknown, Console().status() shows an animated spinner with a message:

from rich.console import Console
import time

console = Console()
with console.status("[bold]Fetching configuration...[/]"):
    time.sleep(2)             # simulate a network call
print("[bold green]Configuration loaded.[/]")

The spinner runs until the with block exits. The message updates the moment the block ends.

Try it

The demo below simulates a batch processing task. The browser environment does not render live animated bars, but the final output of each approach is shown. Try reading and modifying the code:

Where to go next

Next: tables and trees — when tabular or hierarchical output is the right choice, and how to choose between them.