python - Remove xticks in a matplotlib plot?

Question

I have a semilogx plot and I would like to remove the xticks. I tried:

plt.gca().set_xticks([])
plt.xticks([])
ax.set_xticks([])

The grid disappears (ok), but small ticks (at the place of the main ticks) remain. How to remove them?

Answer 1

The plt.tick_params method is very useful for stuff like this. This code turns off major and minor ticks and removes the labels from the x-axis.

Note that there is also ax.tick_params for matplotlib.axes.Axes objects.

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
plt.plot(range(10))
plt.tick_params(
    axis='x',          # changes apply to the x-axis
    which='both',      # both major and minor ticks are affected
    bottom=False,      # ticks along the bottom edge are off
    top=False,         # ticks along the top edge are off
    labelbottom=False) # labels along the bottom edge are off
plt.show()
plt.savefig('plot')
plt.clf()

Answer 2

Not exactly what the OP was asking for, but a simple way to disable all axes lines, ticks and labels is to simply call:

plt.axis('off')

Answer 3

Alternatively, you can pass an empty tick position and label as

# for matplotlib.pyplot
# ---------------------
plt.xticks([], [])
# for axis object
# ---------------
# from Anakhand May 5 at 13:08
# for major ticks
ax.set_xticks([])
# for minor ticks
ax.set_xticks([], minor=True)

Answer 4

Here is an alternative solution that I found on the matplotlib mailing list:

import matplotlib.pylab as plt

x = range(1000)
ax = plt.axes()
ax.semilogx(x, x)
ax.xaxis.set_ticks_position('none') 

Answer 5

There is a better, and simpler, solution than the one given by John Vinyard. Use NullLocator:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.plot(range(10))
plt.gca().xaxis.set_major_locator(plt.NullLocator())
plt.show()
plt.savefig('plot')

Hope that helps.

Answer 6

Try this to remove the labels (but not the ticks):

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.setp( ax.get_xticklabels(), visible=False)

example

Answer 7

This snippet might help in removing the xticks only.

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt    
plt.xticks([])

This snippet might help in removing the xticks and yticks both.

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt    
plt.xticks([]),plt.yticks([])

Answer 8

Those of you looking for a short command to switch off all ticks and labels should be fine with

plt.tick_params(top=False, bottom=False, left=False, right=False,
                labelleft=False, labelbottom=False)

which allows type bool for respective parameters since version matplotlib>=2.1.1

For custom tick settings, the docs are helpful:

https://matplotlib.org/api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.tick_params.html

Answer 9

# remove all the ticks (both axes), and tick labels on the Y axis
plt.tick_params(top='off', bottom='off', left='off', right='off', labelleft='off', labelbottom='on')

Answer 10

Modify the following rc parameters by adding the commands to the script:

plt.rcParams['xtick.bottom'] = False
plt.rcParams['xtick.labelbottom'] = False

A sample matplotlibrc file is depicted in this section of the matplotlib documentation, which lists many other parameters like changing figure size, color of figure, animation settings, etc.