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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Python
docs.python.org › 3 › library › json.html
JSON encoder and decoder — Python 3.14.3 documentation
Disable escaping of non-ascii characters, see json.dumps() for more information. Added in version 3.9. --json-lines¶ · Parse every input line as separate JSON object. Added in version 3.8. --indent, --tab, --no-indent, --compact¶ · Mutually exclusive options for whitespace control.
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Vertabelo Academy
academy.vertabelo.com › course › python-json › writing-json-files › writing-to-json-file › jsondumps-options-the-indent
How to Read and Write JSON Files in Python | Learn Python | Vertabelo Academy
A positive integer indent indent ... An indent level of 0 or negative will only insert newlines. None (the default) selects the most compact representation. Let's have a look at the result.
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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › python › json-dumps-in-python
json.dumps() in Python - GeeksforGeeks
Example 2: This example formats JSON output to make it more readable using indentation. ... The JSON string becomes easy to read. Example 3: This example sorts dictionary keys alphabetically before converting them to JSON. ... Useful for consistent JSON output. Example 4: This example shows how json.dumps() converts a Python list into a JSON-formatted string, which is commonly used when sending list data through APIs.
Published   March 3, 2020
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DigitalOcean
digitalocean.com › community › tutorials › python-pretty-print-json
How to Pretty Print JSON in Python | DigitalOcean
September 16, 2025 - 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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Pradet
quentin.pradet.me › blog › indenting-json-in-python.html
Indenting JSON in Python
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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Reddit
reddit.com › r/learnpython › json dumps indent tab
r/learnpython on Reddit: JSON dumps indent tab
October 12, 2016 -

We use Python 2.7 and I want to change the indention of JSON.dumps() to TABS instead of SPACES. When you do indent=8, it will insert 8 spaces, but I want to insert 2 tabs. I have read that this is possible in Python 3.3 by doing indent="\t\t" but we use Python 2.7.

Find elsewhere
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/learnpython › 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

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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › python › json-dump-in-python
json.dump() in Python - GeeksforGeeks
January 8, 2020 - Python · import json data = {"name": "Joe", "age": 25} with open("data.json", "w") as f: json.dump(data, f) Output · Output · Explanation: json.dump(data, f) converts the dictionary data into JSON format. The JSON output is written directly into the file data.json. json.dump(obj, file, skipkeys=False, ensure_ascii=True, check_circular=True, allow_nan=True, indent=None, separators=None) Parameters: obj: Python object to convert (dict, list, etc.) file: File object where JSON data is written ·
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PYnative
pynative.com › home › python › json › python prettyprint json data
Python PrettyPrint JSON Data
May 14, 2021 - The indent parameter specifies the spaces that are used at the beginning of a line. We can use the indent parameter of json.dump() to specify the indentation value. By default, when you write JSON data into a file, Python doesn’t use indentations ...
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Medium
medium.com › @blogshub4 › 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 - # Minified JSON string json_data = '{"name": "Dharmender", "age": 25, "city": "Bangalore"}'# Convert to Python object parsed_data = json.loads(json_data)# Pretty print with indentation pretty_json = json.dumps(parsed_data, indent=4) print(pretty_json)
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 it—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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PythonHow
pythonhow.com › how › prettyprint-a-json-file
Here is how to prettyprint a JSON file in Python
By specifying the indent parameter in json.dumps(), you can control the number of spaces used for indentation. Setting indent to None or 0 will result in compact JSON without any extra whitespace. Note that if the JSON file is already loaded into a Python object, you can directly pass that ...
🌐
Sentry
sentry.io › sentry answers › python › write json data to a file in python
Write JSON data to a file in Python | Sentry
Specifically, the json.dump function ... "John", "lastname": "Doe", "age": 35} with open("data.json", "w") as f: json.dump(data, f, indent=4)...
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Leapcell
leapcell.io › blog › understanding-json-dumps-in-python
Understanding `json.dumps()` in Python | Leapcell
July 25, 2025 - Notice how the Python False is converted to JSON’s false, and keys are wrapped in double quotes. json.dumps() accepts several optional parameters that allow you to customize the output: Adds indentation to make the JSON string more readable:
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GitHub
gist.github.com › jannismain › e96666ca4f059c3e5bc28abb711b5c92
A JSON Encoder in Python, that puts small lists on single lines. · GitHub
I have reworked it so indent can be provided both as int and str. Providing indent="\t" works as expected now. ... Not only newlines need to be escaped, I think return json.dumps(o) is better.
🌐
Spark By {Examples}
sparkbyexamples.com › home › python › how to pretty print a json file in python?
How to Pretty Print a JSON file in Python? - Spark By {Examples}
May 31, 2024 - # Import JSON module import json # Read JSON data from file with open('file.json', 'r') as f: data = json.load(f) # Pretty-print JSON data and write back to file with open('file.json', 'w') as f: json.dump(data, f, indent=4) This will read the ...