The single function pytimeparse.timeparse.timeparse, defined in the library, (also available as pytimeparse.parse) parses time expressions like the following: 32m 2h32m 3d2h32m 1w3d2h32m ... It returns the time as a number of seconds (an integer value if possible, otherwise a floating-point number): >>> from pytimeparse import parse >>> parse('1.2 minutes') 72 WWW: https://github.com/wroberts/pytimeparse