SLEEP(1)

📦
version 9.10 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

🌙 NAME

sleep — delay for a specified amount of time ✨

Like bestie, this is THE command for when you just need a minute. Or a second. Or four whole days, no judgment. 💅

🫶 SYNOPSIS

sleep NUMBER[SUFFIX]...
sleep OPTION

💖 DESCRIPTION

Ok so here's the vibe: sleep pauses everything for NUMBER seconds, and NUMBER can be an integer or a floating-point number. Yes queen, decimals are allowed. Live your truth. 🦋

SUFFIX may be 's', 'm', 'h', or 'd', which stand for seconds, minutes, hours, and days respectively. iykyk 🎀

And the way that it gets even better — with multiple arguments, sleep pauses for the sum of their values. So you can stack them up like little time slices and it adds them all together. Iconic behaviour honestly. 🌸

🌈 The vibe-check options

  • --help — display this help and exit
  • --version — output version information and exit

👑 AUTHOR

Written by Jim Meyering and Paul Eggert. Legends, fr fr. 🫡

🐛 REPORTING BUGS

Found something cursed? Tell the people:

Please actually report them and don't just complain in the group chat, bestie 💀

🦋 SEE ALSO

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/sleep>

Or available locally via: info '(coreutils) sleep invocation'

Packaged by Ubuntu (9.10-1ubuntu2) 🌸

Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. 🚨

And that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 this is GNU coreutils 9.10, dated August 2026, and it's giving SLEEP(1) main character energy. Go take a nap. You've earned it. 💤👑

📦 where this page comes from