How to Use datetime.timedelta in Python With Examples

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use datetime.timedelta to perform date arithmetic.

With timedelta you can add days, minutes, seconds, hours, weeks and many more to a datetime.date or a datetime.datetime object.

You'll also learn how to:

  • convert a timedelta to seconds, minutes, hours, or days
  • convert a time delta to years
  • how to take the difference between two dates
  • how to format a time delta as string

Let's go!

Table of Contents

Adding Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks and Whatnot to a Date

A timedelta object denotes a duration, it can also represent the difference between two dates or times.

We can use this object to add or subtract a duration from a date and it defines its constructor as datetime.timedelta(days=0, seconds=0, microseconds=0, milliseconds=0, minutes=0, hours=0, weeks=0). As you can see, all arguments are optional and default to 0. It can take ints or floats, positive or negative.

Even though you can pass weeks, hours, minutes and milliseconds only days, seconds, and microseconds are stored internally.

In this section, we'll see basic arithmetic operations such as adding/subtracting a duration to/from a date.

How to Use timedelta to Add Days to a date or datetime Object

Since timedelta represents a duration, we can use it to add days to a datetime. The number of can be positive or negative, thus allowing us to create a date in the future or in the past. The code snippet below shows an example.

>>> import datetime

>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()

>>> now
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 3, 22, 5, 21, 979147)

>>> from datetime import timedelta

>>> now + timedelta(days=3)
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 6, 22, 5, 21, 979147)

>>> now + timedelta(days=-3)
datetime.datetime(2020, 10, 31, 22, 5, 21, 979147)

As you can see, adding a positive number of days yields a future date whereas adding a negative number brings the date to the past.

If you want to add days to a date object, the process is the same.

>>> today = datetime.date.today()

>>> today
datetime.date(2020, 11, 5)

>>> today + timedelta(days=3)
datetime.date(2020, 11, 8)

How to Use timedelta to Add Minutes to a datetime Object

Since timedelta object sets all arguments to 0 by default, we have the option to set only the ones we need. This allows us to add only minutes, for instance.

>>> now
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 3, 22, 5, 21, 979147)

>>> now + timedelta(minutes=3)
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 3, 22, 8, 21, 979147)

>>> now + timedelta(minutes=-3)
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 3, 22, 2, 21, 979147)

How to Use timedelta to Add Weeks, Hours, Seconds, Milliseconds to a datetime

Adding weeks, seconds, milliseconds and even microseconds works in a similar fashion.

>>> now + timedelta(weeks=3)
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 24, 22, 5, 21, 979147)

>>> now + timedelta(hours=3)
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 4, 1, 5, 21, 979147)

>>> now + timedelta(microseconds=3)
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 3, 22, 5, 21, 979150)

>>> now + timedelta(milliseconds=3)
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 3, 22, 5, 21, 982147)

How to Add Years to a datetime in Python

It's definitely possible to use timedelta to add years to a datetime, but some things can go wrong and it's easy to shoot yourself in the foot. For example, you need to take into account leap years yourself. IMHO, the best way to add a certain number of years to a datetime is by using the dateutil library.

>>> import datetime

>>> from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta

>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()

>>> now
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 4, 22, 9, 5, 672091)

>>> now + relativedelta(years=2)
datetime.datetime(2022, 11, 4, 22, 9, 5, 672091)

How to Add Months to a datetime in Python

The same problem arises when we need to add months to a datetime using timedelta. Adding months are not supported by default and requires manual calculation. You can use days, but you’d need to know how many days that month has and so. In a nutshell, it’s too error prone. Again, the best you can do is to use dateutil.relativedelta.

>>> from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta
>>> now
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 4, 22, 9, 5, 672091)

>>> now + relativedelta(years=2)
datetime.datetime(2022, 11, 4, 22, 9, 5, 672091)

>>> now + relativedelta(months=12)
datetime.datetime(2021, 11, 4, 22, 9, 5, 672091)

>>> now + relativedelta(months=24)
datetime.datetime(2022, 11, 4, 22, 9, 5, 672091)

How to convert a timedelta to seconds, minutes, hours, or days

A timedeltaobject allows adding a delta to a datetime but sometimes is useful to convert it into a single time unit, such as seconds, or minutes.

In this section, we'll explore how to do that.

How to convert a timedelta to seconds

A timedelta has only one method called timedelta.total_seconds(). This method returns the total number of seconds the duration has. If we want to convert a timedelta object to seconds, we can just call it.

>>> import datetime

>>> delta = datetime.timedelta(days=1, seconds=34)

# a day has 24h, each hour has 60min of 60s = 24*60*60 = 86400
# 86400s + 34s = 86434s
>>> delta.total_seconds()
86434.0

What is the difference between total_seconds() and timedelta.seconds?

total_seconds()—as its name implies—corresponds to total seconds within the whole duration. On the flip side, timedelta.seconds is an internal property that represents the number of seconds within a day.

To be more precise, timedelta.seconds stores the seconds if it is less than a day, that is, from 0 to 86399. Otherwise, if the number of seconds is greater than 86399, timedelta converts this number to days, or weeks as you'll see in the next example.

>>> import datetime

>>> delta = datetime.timedelta(seconds=34)

# Delta is withtin 0 and 86399, so delta.seconds returns that number
>>> delta.seconds
34

>>> delta = datetime.timedelta(days=1, seconds=34)

# 1 days + 34s = 86434s, so it overflows to days
>>> delta.seconds
0
>>> delta.days
1
# total_seconds returns 1 day in seconds + 34s = 86434s
>>> delta.total_seconds()
86434.0

How to convert a timedelta to minutes

To convert a timedelta to minutes you need to use a bit of math. Unfortunately, timedelta does not provide any way of accessing the number of minutes in a duration. In the end, you need to do the conversion yourself.

There are two different ways of doing this conversion:

  • the first one you divide the total_seconds() by the number of seconds in a minute, which is 60
  • the second approach, you divide the timedelta object by timedelta(minutes=1) 
>>> import datetime

>>> delta = datetime.timedelta(hours=3, minutes=13, seconds=34)

# there's NO minutes in a time delta object
>>> delta.minutes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
AttributeError                            Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-31-b45e912051b9> in <module>
----> 1 delta.minutes

AttributeError: 'datetime.timedelta' object has no attribute 'minutes'

# we set a variable to represent the number of seconds in a minute
>>> NUM_SECONDS_IN_A_MIN = 60

# we then divide the total seconds by the number of seconds in a minute
# this gives us around 193 minutes
>>> delta.total_seconds() / NUM_SECONDS_IN_A_MIN
193.56666666666666

# alternatively, we use the divide operator
>>> delta / datetime.timedelta(minutes=1)
193.56666666666666

How to convert a timedelta to hours

We can follow the same logic to convert a timedelta to hours. Instead of dividing the total_seconds() by the number of seconds in a minute, or dividing thetimedelta object by timedelta(minutes=1), we do it for hour.

>>> import datetime

>>> delta = datetime.timedelta(hours=3, minutes=13, seconds=34)

delta.hours
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AttributeError                            Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-3-8c2202cab691> in <module>
---------> 1 delta.hours

AttributeError: 'datetime.timedelta' object has no attribute 'hours'

>>> delta / datetime.timedelta(hours=1)
3.226111111111111

How to convert a timedelta to days

Converting a timedelta to days is easier, and less confusing, than seconds. According to the docs, only days, seconds and microseconds are stored internally. To get the number of days in a time delta, just use the timedelta.days.

⚠️ WARNING: timedelta.days is an internal property that is not listed in the docs, so it's not a good idea to rely on it. A more robust approach is to divide the time delta object by datetime.timedelta(days=1).

>>> import datetime

>>> delta = datetime.timedelta(weeks=2, days=3, seconds=34)

# 1 week has 7 days, so 2 weeks has 14 days. 2 weeks + 3 days = 17 days
>>> delta.days
17

# if you want the days including the fraction of seconds, divide it by timedelta(days=1)
>>> delta / datetime.timedelta(days=1)
17.000393518518518

How to convert a timedelta to years

If you've been following this guide since the beginning you might have started to pick up a pattern. However, I have bad news.

In the "what is timedelta?" section, I mentioned that you can create a timedelta by passing a combination of days, seconds, microseconds, milliseconds, minutes, hours, and weeks.

By default, timedelta doesn't support years. To do that we would need to calculate how many weeks there is in how many years we want to pass. It's definitely possible to use timedelta to add years to a datetime, but some things can go wrong. For example, you need to take into account leap years yourself.

The idea here is to create a variable that holds the number of seconds in a year. A full year has 365 days, but to account for the leap years, we add 0.25 to it, so 365.25. Each day has 24 hours of 60 min, and each minute has 60s. Multiply everything and you get the number of seconds in a year.

>>> import datetime

# 1 year has 52 weeks, so we create a delta of 2 years with 2*52
>>> delta = datetime.timedelta(weeks=2*52, days=3, seconds=34)

>>> delta
datetime.timedelta(days=731, seconds=34)

>>> def timedelta_to_years(delta: datetime.timedelta) -> float:
        seconds_in_year = 365.25*24*60*60
        return delta.total_seconds() / seconds_in_year

>>> timedelta_to_years(delta)
2.0013700027885517

# round to int, if you don't care about the fraction
>>> int(timedelta_to_years(delta))
2

Another alternative—to me the best one—is to get a delta duration in years is by using the python-dateutil library.

>>> import datetime

>>> from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta

>>> delta = relativedelta(years=2, weeks=3, months=1)

>>> delta
relativedelta(years=+2, months=+1, days=+21)

>>> delta.years
2

>>> delta = relativedelta(years=2, weeks=3, months=15)

>>> delta.years
3

How to Take the Difference Between Two Dates

As discussed earlier, timedelta can also represent the difference between two dates. The following sub-sections illustrate how you can do that.

How to Calculate the Number of Days Between Two Dates

To obtain the difference between two datetime objects in days you can use the - operator, for example.

>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()

>>> now
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 3, 22, 36, 21, 674967)

>>> yesterday = datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 2)

>>> now - yesterday
datetime.timedelta(days=1, seconds=81381, microseconds=674967)

>>> now - yesterday
 datetime.timedelta(days=1, seconds=81381, microseconds=674967)

>>> (now - yesterday).days
1

How to Calculate the Number of Minutes Between Two Dates

This one requires more work, and we can achieve it in two different ways. The first one is using divmod and the second one is using timedelta.

According to the docs , divmod takes two (non complex) numbers as arguments and return a pair of numbers consisting of their quotient and remainder when using integer division. In our case, we want to divide the total number of seconds contained in the duration by the number of seconds in one minute, which is 60.

>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()

>>> now
datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 3, 22, 57, 12, 300437)

>>> yesterday = datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 2, 22, 57, 12, 300437)

>>> diff = now - yesterday

>>> diff.total_seconds()
86400.0

>>> diff / timedelta(minutes=1)
1440.0

>>> divmod(diff.total_seconds(), 60)
(1440.0, 0.0)

>>> int(diff / timedelta(minutes=1))
1440

How to Format a timedelta as string

Sometimes we want to get a string representation of a timedelta object. Even though you can do that by calling str(timedelta_obj), sometimes the result will not be good. The reason is that it can vary depending on the length of the duration the object represents. For example, take a look at what happens when you try to print different timedeltas.

>>> from datetime import timedelta

>>> timedelta(seconds=123)
datetime.timedelta(seconds=123)

>>> str(timedelta(seconds=123))
'0:02:03'

>>> str(timedelta(seconds=123456))
'1 day, 10:17:36'

>>> str(timedelta(seconds=1234.56))
'0:20:34.560000'

With that in mind, the question is: how can we have a more consistent format?

Sadly, we don’t have many options other than implementing a formatting function ourselves. The good thing is, that’s not so hard.

Suppose we want to print the timedelta in this format: [N days] %H:%M:%S. One way to do that is using python’s f-strings.

def format_timedelta(delta: timedelta) -> str:
    """Formats a timedelta duration to [N days] %H:%M:%S format"""
    seconds = int(delta.total_seconds())

    secs_in_a_day = 86400
    secs_in_a_hour = 3600
    secs_in_a_min = 60

    days, seconds = divmod(seconds, secs_in_a_day)
    hours, seconds = divmod(seconds, secs_in_a_hour)
    minutes, seconds = divmod(seconds, secs_in_a_min)

    time_fmt = f"{hours:02d}:{minutes:02d}:{seconds:02d}"

    if days > 0:
        suffix = "s" if days > 1 else ""
        return f"{days} day{suffix} {time_fmt}"

    return time_fmt
>>> format_timedelta(timedelta(hours=23, seconds=3809))
'1 day 00:03:29'

>>> format_timedelta(timedelta(hours=23))
'23:00:00'

>>> format_timedelta(timedelta(hours=25))
'1 day 01:00:00'

>>> format_timedelta(timedelta(hours=48, seconds=3700))
'2 days 01:01:40'

Conclusion

That’s it for today, folks! I hope you’ve learned something different and useful. Knowing how to perform date calculations such as addition and subtraction is very important. The timedelta object is good enough for most situations but if you need more complex operations go for the dateutil library.

Other posts you may like:

See you next time!

This post was originally published at https://miguendes.me

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