151

I have a simple line plot and need to move the y-axis ticks from the (default) left side of the plot to the right side. Any thoughts on how to do this?

Improve this question

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
261

Use ax.yaxis.tick_right()

for example:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt

f = plt.figure()
ax = f.add_subplot(111)
ax.yaxis.tick_right()
plt.plot([2,3,4,5])
plt.show()

enter image description here

Improve this answer
6
  • 1
    Great answer, you get a +1, I'd give you another +1 for the picture but I'm limited to only 1.
    – lukecampbell
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 17:23
  • interesting that this causes the tick names to come back even though they should be suppressed by sharey=True
    – endolith
    Commented Dec 17, 2017 at 20:19
  • And what if I want the ticks and labels both left and right?
    – AstroFloyd
    Commented Feb 16, 2018 at 16:59
  • 3
    I did not sort out why, but this breaks if you have subplots with sharey=True.
    – Steven C. Howell
    Commented May 3, 2018 at 18:41
  • What's the command to make the ticks appear on the left and the right? Thanks!
    – tommy.carstensen
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 5:57
136

For right labels use ax.yaxis.set_label_position("right"), i.e.:

f = plt.figure()
ax = f.add_subplot(111)
ax.yaxis.tick_right()
ax.yaxis.set_label_position("right")
plt.plot([2,3,4,5])
ax.set_xlabel("$x$ /mm")
ax.set_ylabel("$y$ /mm")
plt.show()
Improve this answer
70

joaquin's answer works, but has the side effect of removing ticks from the left side of the axes. To fix this, follow up tick_right() with a call to set_ticks_position('both'). A revised example:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt

f = plt.figure()
ax = f.add_subplot(111)
ax.yaxis.tick_right()
ax.yaxis.set_ticks_position('both')
plt.plot([2,3,4,5])
plt.show()

The result is a plot with ticks on both sides, but tick labels on the right.

enter image description here

Improve this answer
28

Just is case somebody asks (like I did), this is also possible when one uses subplot2grid. For example:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.subplot2grid((3,2), (0,1), rowspan=3)
plt.plot([2,3,4,5])
plt.tick_params(axis='y', which='both', labelleft='off', labelright='on')
plt.show()

It will show this:

enter image description here

Improve this answer
3
  • 5
    This works with ax.tick_params(axis='y', which='both', labelleft='off', labelright='on') as well. But it does not move the ylabel
    – Eric
    Commented Aug 5, 2016 at 0:41
  • 3
    Well you can always use plt.gca() to get the current axes object. Therefore you would use: plt.gca().yaxis.set_label_position("right")
    – sannaj
    Commented May 8, 2019 at 15:00
  • labelleft, labelright : bool. So it should be plt.tick_params(axis='y', which='both', labelleft=False, labelright=True) to disable left-side labels. Also left=False, right=True to move ticks as well.
    – Dmitriy Work
    Commented Feb 17, 2021 at 1:50
2

Using subplots and if you are sharing the y-axis (i.e., sharey=True), before creating the plot, try:

plt.rcParams['ytick.right'] = plt.rcParams['ytick.labelright'] = True plt.rcParams['ytick.left'] = plt.rcParams['ytick.labelleft'] = False

From: Matplotlib gallery

Improve this answer
1
  • Works neatly in 2022 with current version of matplotlib.
    – squarespiral
    Commented Nov 27, 2022 at 20:49

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.