How to sleep for 1 second between each xargs command?

You can use the following syntax:

ps aux | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -I % sh -c '{ echo %; sleep 1; }'

Be careful with spaces and semicolons though. After every command in between brackets, semicolon is required (even after the last one).

linux bash shell xargs

Replace echo by some shell script named sleepecho containing

 #!/bin/sh sleep 1 echo $*

linux bash shell xargs

If your awk supports it:

ps aux | awk '{ system("sleep 1"); print $1 }' | xargs -I {} echo {}q

or skip awk and xargs altogether

ps aux | while read -r user rest;    echo $user    sleep 1;done

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