Measure execution time in minutes and seconds

Question

I would like to measure multiple times in an automation PowerShell script. I used Get-Date and TotalSeconds. The result looks for example like this: 236.908

How can I get the elapsed time as human readable in minutes and seconds?

$startTime = (Get-Date)
$endTime = (Get-Date)

$ElapsedTime = (($endTime-$startTime).TotalSeconds)

Write-Host "Duration: xx min xx sec"

`($endTime-$startTime).ToString('''Duration: ''mm'' min ''ss'' sec''')` — user4003407, Jan 15 '17 at 12:02
Does this answer your question? [Get a better timer output in PowerShell](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17811947/get-a-better-timer-output-in-powershell) — Josh Correia, Aug 15 '22 at 15:14

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 15 '17 at 12:17

11

Use the format operator (-f):

'Duration: {0:mm} min {0:ss} sec' -f ($endTime-$startTime)

or like this, if you need the difference elsewhere as well:

$ElapsedTime = $endTime-$startTime
'Duration: {0:mm} min {0:ss} sec' -f $ElapsedTime

answered Jan 15 '17 at 12:17

Ansgar Wiechers

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score 4 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 10 '19 at 03:56

4

You can use Measure-Command too:

Measure-Command -Expression {

    # Command 1
    Get-ChildItem

    # Command N
    Get-Process
}

Or like this:

$result = Measure-Command -Expression {

    # Command 1
    Get-ChildItem

    # Command N
    Get-Process
}

$result.ToString()

edited Apr 10 '19 at 03:56

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jan 16 '17 at 07:10

Esperento57

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Measure execution time in minutes and seconds

2 Answers2