---
id: delorean
version: "2.0.0"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# delorean — library for manipulating datetimes with ease and clarity

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 114.8K/mo

## What it is and what it does

Delorean is a datetime manipulation library that abstracts away the complexity of Python's standard datetime and timezone handling. It builds on python-dateutil and zoneinfo to provide a simpler, more intuitive API for common tasks like shifting between timezones, manipulating dates, and creating datetime objects. Rather than chaining multiple imports and method calls, you work with Delorean objects that handle the boilerplate—timezone conversions, localization, and arithmetic become single-line operations.

The library targets developers who find Python's native datetime API verbose or error-prone, especially when working across timezones or performing repeated date manipulations. It integrates humanize for readable time representations and babel for locale-aware formatting, making it useful in applications that need both programmatic precision and human-friendly output.

Use it for:

- Convert and display times across multiple timezones in web applications or APIs.
- Simplify date arithmetic (e.g., shifting a datetime forward or backward) in scheduling or reporting code.
- Generate human-readable timestamps and relative time strings in logs or user interfaces.
- Handle timezone-aware datetime creation and manipulation in data pipelines.
- Build timezone-sensitive business logic without repeated dateutil boilerplate.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Delorean simplifies Python datetime manipulation by wrapping the standard library and dateutil with a cleaner API for shifting timezones, manipulating dates, and generating datetime objects.

Yes, if you work frequently with datetimes and timezones in Python. The low install friction, active maintenance, MIT license, and clean API make it a practical choice for reducing datetime-related complexity. Not necessary for simple, timezone-naive use cases, but worthwhile for applications that juggle multiple timezones or need readable time output.

## Install

pip install delorean
uv add delorean
poetry add delorean

## Installing delorean

Before you install: Low friction install with four lightweight runtime dependencies (babel, humanize, python-dateutil, tzlocal). Active maintenance with a recent release (13 days ago) and steady repository activity.

License in practice: MIT license permits free use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions—suitable for both open-source and commercial projects.

Quickstart:

pip install delorean

from delorean import Delorean

d = Delorean()
d = d.shift('US/Eastern')
print(d)

Requires Python 3.10 or later.

Verify before relying:

- Whether natural language time parsing (e.g., 'next Tuesday') is supported beyond timezone shifting.
- Performance characteristics when handling large batches of datetime operations.
- Extent of timezone database coverage and update frequency.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 114.8K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

python datetime manipulation, timezone handling library, date shifting and arithmetic, datetime abstraction layer, humanized time operations, dateutil wrapper, timezone-aware datetime, datetime, timezone-handling, api-wrapper

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