Guide
How long does it take to learn Python on YouTube? 9 free courses, measured
Updated 2026-10-21 · 6 min read
Watching a free Python course on YouTube takes 9 to 19 hours for most of the ones people recommend. We measured nine of them on 21 October 2026, counting every video to the last: Bro Code's is 14 hours, Harvard's CS50P 16, CodeWithHarry's 100 Days of Code 18. The middle of the nine is 18 hours.
At 1.5× speed and half an hour a day, that is three weeks: CS50P takes 22 days, Bro Code's course 20. Two playlists are far longer, Corey Schafer's at 87 hours and CodeWithHarry's older Hindi series at 35, but they are not longer courses. They are a channel's Python videos collected in one place, and a beginner needs a few hours of them.
Every course, measured
Ranked by total. "1.5×" is the total watched at one and a half times speed, and "Avg" the average video.
| Course | Videos | Total | 1.5× | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corey Schafer | 158 | 87 h | 58 h | 33 m |
| Harry: older (Hindi) | 129 | 35 h | 23 h | 16 m |
| MIT 6.100L | 26 | 28 h | 19 h | 64 m |
| Mosh | 23 | 19 h | 13 h | 49 m |
| Harry: 100 Days (Hindi) | 100 | 18 h | 12 h | 11 m |
| CS50P | 11 | 16 h | 11 h | 87 m |
| Bro Code | 93 | 14 h | 10 h | 9 m |
| MIT 6.0001 | 38 | 10 h | 7 h | 16 m |
| sentdex | 68 | 9 h | 6 h | 8 m |
Totals are rounded to the hour; CS50P is 15 hours 54 minutes exactly, Bro Code's course 14 hours 15. None of the nine has a private or deleted video. Each course name opens its live page, where the total is current and you can tick off what you have watched. The same nine are on our list of free Python courses, with notes on who each suits.
Short lessons, lectures, or a library
The nine are three different things, and which one you pick decides your week more than the total does.
Beginner series, 9 to 18 hours. Bro Code (14 hours), CodeWithHarry's 100 Days of Code (18) and sentdex's Python 3 Basics (9) teach the language in lessons of 8 to 11 minutes on average, one idea each. They fit a lunch break. CodeWithHarry's is built to be taken as one lesson a day: 100 days of 11 minutes.
University lectures, 10 to 28 hours. Harvard's CS50P (16 hours) and MIT's 6.0001 (10) and 6.100L (28) are filmed lectures, typically 81 minutes for CS50P and 74 for 6.100L, and all three come with problem sets. They take longer than the video time says, because the problem sets are where the course happens. 6.100L is MIT's newer and slower version of 6.0001, recorded in 2022.
Libraries, 19 to 87 hours. Corey Schafer's, Mosh's and CodeWithHarry's older playlist gather a channel's Python videos, including web frameworks and projects. They are worth bookmarking, not watching end to end.
What a beginner needs from the long playlists
Corey Schafer, 87 hours. His "Python Tutorial for Beginners" series is the first nine videos, 2 hours 38 minutes. The 67 videos whose titles start "Python Tutorial", the beginner nine included, come to 26 hours. Most of the rest is frameworks: 10 hours of Django, 9 of Flask, 5 of pandas, and a single FastAPI course of 14 hours 24 minutes, the longest video in any of the nine playlists.
Mosh, 19 hours. The first video, Python Full Course for Beginners, is 6 hours 14 minutes and is the course. Four later videos teach the same basics again, in versions from 1 to 2½ hours, and the rest are short single-topic lessons plus about an hour each on machine learning, Django and projects.
CodeWithHarry's older series, 35 hours. The lessons are short, 12 minutes typically, and the last few videos are projects and a 3-hour Django course. The 100 Days of Code series is the newer, shorter route; the older one goes deeper.
Days to finish at half an hour or an hour a day
How many days each course takes at 1.5×, watching every day. The libraries are left out; Mosh's row is his 6-hour full course.
| Course | Hours | 30 min a day | 1 h a day |
|---|---|---|---|
| sentdex | 9 | 12 days | 6 days |
| MIT 6.0001 | 10 | 14 days | 7 days |
| Bro Code | 14 | 20 days | 10 days |
| CS50P | 16 | 22 days | 11 days |
| Harry: 100 Days | 18 | 24 days | 12 days |
| MIT 6.100L | 28 | 38 days | 19 days |
| Mosh: full course | 6 | 9 days | 5 days |
These are days of video. You learn to program by writing programs, so plan time to type along and to do the exercises on top, and treat these days as the floor. Speed costs less on lectures than on code-alongs, where you pause anyway (what 1.5× and 2× cost →).
Check the total covers every video
Some playlist length tools add up only the first 100 videos and stop without saying so. Two of these playlists are longer than that: the first 100 videos of Corey Schafer's come to 40 hours of its 87, and of CodeWithHarry's older series to 18 of its 35. If a total looks short for a playlist with more than 100 videos, here is how to check it.
Plan the one you choose
Paste the course's link on the home page, or click its name in the table above, and set your daily minutes in the planner: it gives you a finish date and the videos for each day, and you can put the sessions in your calendar. Tick each video as you finish it and the time left updates; the course stays in your list on the home page, so you can pick it up where you stopped. The guide to finishing a long course has the method for keeping a plan going past week two, and how long a free YouTube course is compares Python with 23 other subjects.
Frequently asked
How many hours is CS50P?
Harvard's CS50's Introduction to Programming with Python is 15 hours 54 minutes over 11 videos, measured on 21 October 2026: ten lectures and an introduction. At 1.5× that is under 11 hours. The problem sets take longer than the lectures.
How long is Corey Schafer's Python playlist?
86 hours 37 minutes over 158 videos. It is his whole Python catalogue, not one course: the beginner series is the first nine videos, 2 hours 38 minutes, and 38 hours of the total are Django, Flask, pandas and a 14-hour FastAPI course.
Can I learn Python in a month from YouTube?
You can watch any of the beginner courses or CS50P in a month: under 25 minutes of video a day at 1.5×. Add the time to write code yourself, which is what makes it stick. A month is enough for the basics, not for frameworks or data science on top.
Which free Python course is the shortest?
sentdex's Python 3 Basics is 9 hours over 68 videos, and MIT's 6.0001 is 10 hours of lectures. Mosh's single full-course video is 6 hours 14 minutes, the shortest complete course here if you watch only that.
Why might a total differ from the playlist today?
These totals were measured on 21 October 2026. Creators add and remove videos, and videos go private. Each course's page here, and the Python list, shows the total as it is now.