dunstctl(1)

NAME
dunstctl - command line control utility for dunst

SYNOPSIS
dunstctl COMMAND [PARAMETER]

COMMANDS

action notification_position
    Performs the default action or, if not available, opens the context menu of the notification at the given position (starting count at the top, first notification being 0).

close [ID]
    Close the topmost notification currently being displayed. You can optionally pass an ID to close the matching notification (if present).

close-all
    Close all notifications currently being displayed.

context
    Open the context menu, presenting all available actions and urls for the currently open notifications.

count [displayed/history/waiting]
    Returns the number of displayed, shown and waiting notifications. If no argument is provided, everything will be printed.

history
    Exports the history as JSON.

history-clear
    Deletes all notifications from the history.

history-pop [ID]
    Redisplay the notification that was most recently closed. This can be called multiple times to show older notifications, up to the history limit configured in dunst. You can optionally pass an ID to history-pop, in which case the notification with the given ID will be shown.

history-rm ID
    Removes the notification with the given ID from the history.

is-paused
    Check if dunst is currently running or paused. If dunst is paused notifications will be kept but not shown until it is unpaused.

set-paused true/false/toggle
    Set the paused status of dunst. If false, dunst is running normally, if true, dunst is paused (with maximum pause level of 100). See the is-paused command and the dunst man page for more information.

get-pause-level
    Get current dunst's pause level, where 0 is not paused and 100 is maximally paused.

    This can be combined with notification's override_pause_level to selectively display specific notifications while paused.

set-pause-level [level]
    Set the pause level, where 0 is not paused and 100 is maximally paused.

    This can be combined with notification's override_pause_level to selectively display specific notifications while paused.

rule rule_name enable/disable/toggle
    Enables, disables or toggles the rule identified by its name. This can be used to temporarily activate or deactivate specific rules.

rules [--json]
    Exports all currently configured rules (optionally JSON formatted).

reload [dunstrc ...]
    Reload the settings of the running dunst instance. You can optionally specify which configuration files to use. Otherwise, the config specified by the first invocation of dunst will be reloaded. When dunst is reloaded all the rules are reapplied to the original notification, so modifications made by previous rules are not taken into account.

debug
    Tries to contact dunst and checks for common faults between dunstctl and dunst. Useful if something isn't working.

help
    Show all available commands with a brief description.

COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2011-2014 Sascha Kruse

Copyright 2014-2026 Dunst contributors

Dunst is released under the BSD 3-Clause License, see LICENSE for more information.

If you feel that copyrights are violated, please send an email to the maintainers.

SEE ALSO
dunst(5), dmenu(1), notify-send(1), dunstify(1)