Pulseaudio command line interface syntax
~/.config/pulse/default.pa
/etc/pulse/default.pa
/etc/pulse/system.pa
PulseAudio provides a simple command line language used by configuration scripts, the pacmd interactive shell, and the modules module-cli and module-cli-protocol-{unix,tcp}. Empty lines and lines beginning with a hashmark (#) are silently ignored. Several commands are supported.
Note that any boolean arguments can be given positively as '1', 't', 'y', 'true', 'yes' or 'on'. Likewise, negative values can be given as '0', 'f', 'n', 'false', 'no' or 'off'. Case is ignored.
help
Show a quick help on the commands available.
list-modules
Show all currently loaded modules with their arguments.
list-cards
Show all currently registered cards
list-sinks or list-sources
Show all currently registered sinks (resp. sources).
list-clients
Show all currently active clients.
list-sink-inputs or list-source-outputs
Show all currently active inputs to sinks a.k.a. playback streams (resp. outputs of sources a.k.a. recording streams).
stat
Show some simple statistics about the allocated memory blocks and the space used by them.
info or ls or list
A combination of all status commands described above (all three commands are synonyms).
load-module name [arguments...]
Load a module specified by its name and arguments. For most modules it is OK to be loaded more than once.
unload-module index|name
Unload a module, specified either by its index in the module list or its name.
describe-module name
Give information about a module specified by its name.
set-sink-volume|set-source-volume index|name volume
Set the volume of the specified sink (resp. source). You may specify the sink (resp. source) either by its index in the sink/source list or by its name. The volume should be an integer value greater or equal than 0 (muted). Volume 65536 (0x10000) is 'normal' volume a.k.a. 100%. Values greater than this amplify the audio signal (with clipping).
set-sink-mute|set-source-mute index|name boolean
Mute or unmute the specified sink (resp. source). You may specify the sink (resp. source) either by its index or by its name. The mute value is either 0 (not muted) or 1 (muted).
set-sink-input-volume|set-source-output-volume index volume
Set the volume of a sink input (resp. source output) specified by its index. The same volume rules apply as with set-sink-volume.
set-sink-input-mute|set-source-output-mute index boolean
Mute or unmute a sink input (resp. source output) specified by its index. The same mute rules apply as with set-sink-mute.
set-default-sink|set-default-source index|name
Make a sink (resp. source) the default. You may specify the sink (resp. source) by its index in the sink (resp. source) list or by its name.
Note that defaults may be overridden by various policy modules or by specific stream configurations.
set-card-profile index|name profile-name
Change the profile of a card.
set-sink-port|set-source-port index|name port-name
Change the profile of a sink (resp. source).
set-port-latency-offset card-index|card-name port-name offset
Change the latency offset of a port belonging to the specified card
suspend-sink|suspend-source index|name boolean
Suspend (i.e. disconnect from the underlying hardware) a sink (resp. source).
suspend boolean
Suspend all sinks and sources.
move-sink-input|move-source-output index sink-index|sink-name
Move sink input (resp. source output) to another sink (resp. source).
update-sink-proplist|update-source-proplist index|name properties
Update the properties of a sink (resp. source) specified by name or index. The property is specified as e.g. device.description="My Preferred Name"
update-sink-input-proplist|update-source-output-proplist index properties
Update the properties of a sink input (resp. source output) specified by index. The properties are specified as above.
list-samples
Lists the contents of the sample cache.
play-sample name sink-index|sink-name
Play a sample cache entry to a sink.
remove-sample name
Remove an entry from the sample cache.
load-sample name filename
Load an audio file to the sample cache.
load-sample-lazy name filename
Create a new entry in the sample cache, but don't load the sample immediately. The sample is loaded only when it is first used. After a certain idle time it is freed again.
load-sample-dir-lazy path
Load all entries in the specified directory into the sample cache as lazy entries. A shell globbing expression (e.g. *.wav) may be appended to the path of the directory to add.
kill-client index
Remove a client forcibly from the server. There is no protection against the client reconnecting immediately.
kill-sink-input|kill-source-output index
Remove a sink input (resp. source output) forcibly from the server. This will not remove the owning client or any other streams opened by the same client from the server.
set-log-level numeric-level
Change the log level.
set-log-meta boolean
Show source code location in log messages.
set-log-target target
Change the log target (null, auto, journal, syslog, stderr, file:PATH, newfile:PATH).
set-log-time boolean
Show timestamps in log messages.
set-log-backtrace num-frames
Show backtrace in log messages.
play-file filename sink-index|sink-name
Play an audio file to a sink.
dump
Dump the daemon's current configuration in CLI commands.
dump-volumes
Debug: Shows the current state of all volumes.
shared
Debug: Show shared properties.
exit
Terminate the daemon. If you want to terminate a CLI connection ("log out") you might want to use ctrl+d
In addition to the commands described above there are a few meta directives supported by the command line interpreter.
.include filename|folder
Executes the commands from the specified script file or in all of the *.pa file within the folder.
.fail and .nofail
Enable (resp. disable) that following failing commands will cancel the execution of the current script file. This is a ignored when used on the interactive command line.
The PulseAudio Developers <pulseaudio-discuss (at) lists (dot) freedesktop (dot) org>; PulseAudio is available from http://pulseaudio.org/