Use the indent= parameter of json.dump() or json.dumps() to specify how many spaces to indent by:

>>> import json
>>> your_json = '["foo", {"bar": ["baz", null, 1.0, 2]}]'
>>> parsed = json.loads(your_json)
>>> print(json.dumps(parsed, indent=4))
[
    "foo",
    {
        "bar": [
            "baz",
            null,
            1.0,
            2
        ]
    }
]

To parse a file, use json.load():

with open('filename.txt', 'r') as handle:
    parsed = json.load(handle)
Answer from Blender on Stack Overflow
Top answer
1 of 15
3096

Use the indent= parameter of json.dump() or json.dumps() to specify how many spaces to indent by:

>>> import json
>>> your_json = '["foo", {"bar": ["baz", null, 1.0, 2]}]'
>>> parsed = json.loads(your_json)
>>> print(json.dumps(parsed, indent=4))
[
    "foo",
    {
        "bar": [
            "baz",
            null,
            1.0,
            2
        ]
    }
]

To parse a file, use json.load():

with open('filename.txt', 'r') as handle:
    parsed = json.load(handle)
2 of 15
500

You can do this on the command line:

python3 -m json.tool some.json

(as already mentioned in the commentaries to the question, thanks to @Kai Petzke for the python3 suggestion).

Actually python is not my favourite tool as far as json processing on the command line is concerned. For simple pretty printing is ok, but if you want to manipulate the json it can become overcomplicated. You'd soon need to write a separate script-file, you could end up with maps whose keys are u"some-key" (python unicode), which makes selecting fields more difficult and doesn't really go in the direction of pretty-printing.

You can also use jq:

jq . some.json

and you get colors as a bonus (and way easier extendability).

Addendum: There is some confusion in the comments about using jq to process large JSON files on the one hand, and having a very large jq program on the other. For pretty-printing a file consisting of a single large JSON entity, the practical limitation is RAM. For pretty-printing a 2GB file consisting of a single array of real-world data, the "maximum resident set size" required for pretty-printing was 5GB (whether using jq 1.5 or 1.6). Note also that jq can be used from within python after pip install jq.

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DigitalOcean
digitalocean.com โ€บ community โ€บ tutorials โ€บ python-pretty-print-json
How to Pretty Print JSON in Python | DigitalOcean
September 16, 2025 - When changes are made to a JSON ... rather than formatting shifts. The best and easiest way to indent JSON output in Python is by using the the indent parameter in the json.dumps() function....
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Real Python
realpython.com โ€บ python-json
Working With JSON Data in Python โ€“ Real Python
August 20, 2025 - If you want linebreaks in your JSON string, then you can set indent to 0 or provide an empty string. Although probably less useful, you can even provide a negative number as the indentation or any other string.
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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org โ€บ python โ€บ python-pretty-print-json
Python - Pretty Print JSON - GeeksforGeeks
July 23, 2025 - This code reads JSON data from ... function and the pprint module. The pprint module is used to pretty-print the JSON data with specific formatting options like an indentation of 2, a line width of 30 characters, and compact ...
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ReqBin
reqbin.com โ€บ code โ€บ python โ€บ 0l6wsqxp โ€บ python-pretty-print-json-example
How do I pretty print JSON in Python?
Pretty printing JSON String in Python Execute ยท import json ugly_json = '[ {"Customer": 1, "name": "Alice", "country": ["Spain", "Madrid"]}, \ {"Customer": 2, "name": "Jack", "country": ["UK", "London"]} ]' parsed_json = json.loads(ugly_json) pretty_json = json.dumps(parsed_json, indent=2) print(pretty_json) Updated: Jul 27, 2023 Viewed: 17960 times ยท
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Vertabelo Academy
academy.vertabelo.com โ€บ course โ€บ python-json โ€บ writing-json-files โ€บ writing-to-json-file โ€บ jsondumps-options-the-indent
How to Read and Write JSON Files in Python | Learn Python | Vertabelo Academy
Using json.dumps(), convert it to a string. Set the indent option to 4. Print the result. ... Our website uses cookies. By using this website, you agree to their use in accordance with the browser settings.You can modify your browser ...
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Medium
medium.com โ€บ @blogshub4 โ€บ how-to-pretty-print-a-json-string-in-python-98a85f99ecb4
How to Pretty Print a JSON String in Python | by Blogshub | Medium
December 22, 2024 - If you set indent=0 or pass an empty string, the output will still be on a single line but with newlines inserted. Hereโ€™s an example of pretty-printing a minified JSON string: ... # Minified JSON string json_data = '{"name": "Dharmender", ...
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Python
docs.python.org โ€บ 3 โ€บ library โ€บ json.html
JSON encoder and decoder โ€” Python 3.14.3 documentation
If None (the default), JSONEncoder is used. indent (int | str | None) โ€“ If a positive integer or string, JSON array elements and object members will be pretty-printed with that indent level.
Find elsewhere
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PythonHow
pythonhow.com โ€บ how โ€บ prettyprint-a-json-file
Here is how to prettyprint a JSON file in Python
To pretty print a JSON file in Python, you can use the json module along with the json.dumps() function. The json.dumps() function allows you to serialize a JSON object to a formatted string with indentation and line breaks.
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freeCodeCamp
freecodecamp.org โ€บ news โ€บ how-to-pretty-print-json-in-python
How to Pretty Print JSON in Python
April 14, 2023 - This module provides a dumps() ... a JSON string without any formatting, but we can use the indent parameter to specify the number of spaces to use for indentation....
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Pradet
quentin.pradet.me โ€บ blog โ€บ indenting-json-in-python.html
Indenting JSON in Python
You don't need to worry about printing the items themselves: just call your function recursively! Here is how it looks like with ints and lists: def output_unescaped_json(value, *, indent=0): out = '' next_indent = indent + 2 if isinstance(value, int): out += str(value) elif isinstance(value, list): # opening [ and indentation until first item out += '[\n' + ' ' * next_indent # each item separated by commas and indentation out_items = [ output_unescaped_json(item, indent=next_indent) for item in value ] sep = ',\n' + ' ' * next_indent out += sep.join(out_items) # indentation between the last item and ] out += '\n' + ' ' * indent + ']' else: assert False, type(value) return out
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PYnative
pynative.com โ€บ home โ€บ python โ€บ json โ€บ python prettyprint json data
Python PrettyPrint JSON Data
May 14, 2021 - Python Write Indented and Pretty-printed JSON into a file. Prettyprint JSON file and JSON string. Use pprint module to pretty-print JSON. Pretty-print JSON from the command line
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iO Flood
ioflood.com โ€บ blog โ€บ python-json-pretty-print
Python JSON Pretty Print | Guide (With Examples)
February 1, 2024 - We then use the json.dumps() function with the indent parameter set to 4. This formats the JSON data with 4 spaces of indentation, making it easier to read. The result is then printed to the console.
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Reddit
reddit.com โ€บ r/learnpython โ€บ formatting json output in python
r/learnpython on Reddit: formatting json output in Python
May 12, 2022 -

Hi,

I would like to read json into Python code, and then output processed json. In order to get started with this, I have written very basic Python, and am attempting to read in very basic json I found online.

The input json is:

{
    "firstName": "John",
    "lastName": "Doe",
    "hobbies": ["biking", "coding", "rapping"],
    "age": 35,
    "children": [
        {
            "firstName": "hector",
            "age": 6
        },
        {
            "firstName": "cassandra",
            "age": 8
        }
    ]
}

The code is:

import json

if __name__ == '__main__':
    
    print( "start" )

    # read and load input json
    json_input_filename = "input.json"
    json_input = open( json_input_filename )

    json_input_dict = json.load( json_input )

    # write output json
    json_output_filename = "output.json"
    with open( json_output_filename, 'w' ) as json_output:
        json.dump( json_string, json_output )
  

    print( f"end" )

and the output is:

"{\"firstName\": \"John\", \"lastName\": \"Doe\", \"hobbies\": [\"biking\", \"coding\", \"rapping\"], \"age\": 35, \"children\": [{\"firstName\": \"hector\", \"age\": 6}, {\"firstName\": \"cassandra\", \"age\": 8}]}"

What can I do in order to preserve something resembling the original formatting? I'm going to load this output into some other code in order to process it further.

Thank you very much

๐ŸŒ
Better Stack
betterstack.com โ€บ community โ€บ questions โ€บ how-to-print-json-file-in-python
How to Prettyprint a Json File in Python? | Better Stack Community
You can pretty print a JSON file in Python using the json module's loads() function to parse the JSON data, and then the json.dumps() function with the indent parameter to output it in a readable format.
Top answer
1 of 16
32

(Note: The code in this answer only works with json.dumps() which returns a JSON formatted string, but not with json.dump() which writes directly to file-like objects. There's a modified version of it that works with both in my answer to the question Write two-dimensional list to JSON file.)

Updated

Below is a version of my original answer that has been revised several times. Unlike the original, which I posted only to show how to get the first idea in J.F.Sebastian's answer to work, and which like his, returned a non-indented string representation of the object. The latest updated version returns the Python object JSON formatted in isolation.

The keys of each coordinate dict will appear in sorted order, as per one of the OP's comments, but only if a sort_keys=True keyword argument is specified in the initial json.dumps() call driving the process, and it no longer changes the object's type to a string along the way. In other words, the actual type of the "wrapped" object is now maintained.

I think not understanding the original intent of my post resulted in number of folks downvoting itโ€”so, primarily for that reason, I have "fixed" and improved my answer several times. The current version is a hybrid of my original answer coupled with some of the ideas @Erik Allik used in his answer, plus useful feedback from other users shown in the comments below this answer.

The following code appears to work unchanged in both Python 2.7.16 and 3.7.4.

from _ctypes import PyObj_FromPtr
import json
import re

class NoIndent(object):
    """ Value wrapper. """
    def __init__(self, value):
        self.value = value


class MyEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
    FORMAT_SPEC = '@@{}@@'
    regex = re.compile(FORMAT_SPEC.format(r'(\d+)'))

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        # Save copy of any keyword argument values needed for use here.
        self.__sort_keys = kwargs.get('sort_keys', None)
        super(MyEncoder, self).__init__(**kwargs)

    def default(self, obj):
        return (self.FORMAT_SPEC.format(id(obj)) if isinstance(obj, NoIndent)
                else super(MyEncoder, self).default(obj))

    def encode(self, obj):
        format_spec = self.FORMAT_SPEC  # Local var to expedite access.
        json_repr = super(MyEncoder, self).encode(obj)  # Default JSON.

        # Replace any marked-up object ids in the JSON repr with the
        # value returned from the json.dumps() of the corresponding
        # wrapped Python object.
        for match in self.regex.finditer(json_repr):
            # see https://stackoverflow.com/a/15012814/355230
            id = int(match.group(1))
            no_indent = PyObj_FromPtr(id)
            json_obj_repr = json.dumps(no_indent.value, sort_keys=self.__sort_keys)

            # Replace the matched id string with json formatted representation
            # of the corresponding Python object.
            json_repr = json_repr.replace(
                            '"{}"'.format(format_spec.format(id)), json_obj_repr)

        return json_repr


if __name__ == '__main__':
    from string import ascii_lowercase as letters

    data_structure = {
        'layer1': {
            'layer2': {
                'layer3_1': NoIndent([{"x":1,"y":7}, {"x":0,"y":4}, {"x":5,"y":3},
                                      {"x":6,"y":9},
                                      {k: v for v, k in enumerate(letters)}]),
                'layer3_2': 'string',
                'layer3_3': NoIndent([{"x":2,"y":8,"z":3}, {"x":1,"y":5,"z":4},
                                      {"x":6,"y":9,"z":8}]),
                'layer3_4': NoIndent(list(range(20))),
            }
        }
    }

    print(json.dumps(data_structure, cls=MyEncoder, sort_keys=True, indent=2))

Output:

{
  "layer1": {
    "layer2": {
      "layer3_1": [{"x": 1, "y": 7}, {"x": 0, "y": 4}, {"x": 5, "y": 3}, {"x": 6, "y": 9}, {"a": 0, "b": 1, "c": 2, "d": 3, "e": 4, "f": 5, "g": 6, "h": 7, "i": 8, "j": 9, "k": 10, "l": 11, "m": 12, "n": 13, "o": 14, "p": 15, "q": 16, "r": 17, "s": 18, "t": 19, "u": 20, "v": 21, "w": 22, "x": 23, "y": 24, "z": 25}],
      "layer3_2": "string",
      "layer3_3": [{"x": 2, "y": 8, "z": 3}, {"x": 1, "y": 5, "z": 4}, {"x": 6, "y": 9, "z": 8}],
      "layer3_4": [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19]
    }
  }
}
2 of 16
18

A bodge, but once you have the string from dumps(), you can perform a regular expression substitution on it, if you're sure of the format of its contents. Something along the lines of:

s = json.dumps(data_structure, indent=2)
s = re.sub('\s*{\s*"(.)": (\d+),\s*"(.)": (\d+)\s*}(,?)\s*', r'{"\1":\2,"\3":\4}\5', s)
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Spark By {Examples}
sparkbyexamples.com โ€บ home โ€บ python โ€บ how to pretty print a json file in python?
How to Pretty Print a JSON file in Python? - Spark By {Examples}
May 31, 2024 - By default, the output JSON is compact and hard to read. You can make the JSON file more readable by using the indent parameter in the json.dump() method. The indent parameter specifies the number of spaces to use for indentation.
๐ŸŒ
W3Schools
w3schools.com โ€บ python โ€บ gloss_python_format_json.asp
Python Format JSON
json.dumps(x, indent=4, separators=(". ", " = ")) Try it Yourself ยป ยท Python JSON Tutorial JSON Parse JSON Convert into JSON Sort JSON
๐ŸŒ
GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org โ€บ python โ€บ pretty-print-json-in-python
Pretty Print JSON in Python - GeeksforGeeks
July 12, 2025 - Example 1: Python3 ยท # Write Python3 ... Specialist"}]' json_object = json.loads(json_data) # Indent keyword while dumping the # data decides to what level # spaces the user wants....