pactl - Man Page

Control a running PulseAudio sound server

Examples (TL;DR)

tldr.sh

Synopsis

pactl [options] COMMAND [ARGS ...]

pactl --help

pactl --version

Description

pactl can be used to issue control commands to the PulseAudio sound server.

pactl only exposes a subset of the available operations. For the full set use the pacmd(1).

Options

-h | --help

Show help.

--version

Show version information.

-s | --server=SERVER

Choose the server to connect to.

-f | --format=FORMAT

Choose output format, available options are "text" or "json".

-n | --client-name=NAME

Specify the client name pactl shall pass to the server when connecting.

Commands

When supplied as arguments to the commands below, the special names @DEFAULT_SINK@, @DEFAULT_SOURCE@ and @DEFAULT_MONITOR@ can be used to specify the default sink, source and monitor respectively.

stat

Dump a few statistics about the memory usage of the PulseAudio daemon.

info

Dump some info about the PulseAudio daemon.

list [short] [TYPE]

Dump all currently loaded modules, available sinks, sources, streams, etc. TYPE must be one of: modules, sinks, sources, sink-inputs, source-outputs, clients, samples, cards, message-handlers. If not specified, all info is listed with the exception of the message-handlers. If short is given, output is in a tabular format, for easy parsing by scripts.

exit

Asks the PulseAudio server to terminate.

upload-sample FILENAME [NAME]

Upload a sound from the specified audio file into the sample cache. The file types supported are those understood by libsndfile. The sample in the cache is named after the audio file, unless the name is explicitly specified.

play-sample NAME [SINK]

Play the specified sample from the sample cache. It is played on the default sink, unless the symbolic name or the numerical index of the sink to play it on is specified.

remove-sample NAME

Remove the specified sample from the sample cache.

load-module NAME [ARGUMENTS ...]

Load the specified module with the specified arguments into the running sound server. Prints the numeric index of the module just loaded to STDOUT. You can use it to unload the module later.

unload-module ID|NAME

Unload the module instance identified by the specified numeric index or unload all modules by the specified name.

move-sink-input ID SINK

Move the specified playback stream (identified by its numerical index) to the specified sink (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index).

move-source-output ID SOURCE

Move the specified recording stream (identified by its numerical index) to the specified source (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index).

suspend-sink SINK true|false

Suspend or resume the specified sink (which may be specified either by its symbolic name or numerical index), depending whether true (suspend) or false (resume) is passed as last argument. Suspending a sink will pause all playback. Depending on the module implementing the sink this might have the effect that the underlying device is closed, making it available for other applications to use. The exact behaviour depends on the module.

suspend-source SOURCE true|false

Suspend or resume the specified source (which may be specified either by its symbolic name or numerical index), depending whether true (suspend) or false (resume) is passed as last argument. Suspending a source will pause all capturing. Depending on the module implementing the source this might have the effect that the underlying device is closed, making it available for other applications to use. The exact behaviour depends on the module.

set-card-profile CARD PROFILE

Set the specified card (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index) to the specified profile (identified by its symbolic name).

get-default-sink

Returns the symbolic name of the default sink.

set-default-sink SINK

Make the specified sink (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index) the default sink. Use the special name @NONE@ to unset the user defined default sink. This will make pulseaudio return to the default sink selection based on sink priority.

set-sink-port SINK PORT

Set the specified sink (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index) to the specified port (identified by its symbolic name).

get-default-source

Returns the symbolic name of the default source.

set-default-source SOURCE

Make the specified source (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index) the default source. Use the special name @NONE@ to unset the user defined default source. This will make pulseaudio return to the default source selection based on source priority.

set-source-port SOURCE PORT

Set the specified source (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index) to the specified port (identified by its symbolic name).

set-port-latency-offset CARD PORT OFFSET

Set a latency offset to a specified port (identified by its symbolic name) that belongs to a card (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index). OFFSET is a number which represents the latency offset in microseconds

get-sink-volume SINK

Get the volume of the specified sink (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index) displayed in the same format as the `info` command.

set-sink-volume SINK VOLUME [VOLUME ...]

Set the volume of the specified sink (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index). VOLUME can be specified as an integer (e.g. 2000, 16384), a linear factor (e.g. 0.4, 1.100), a percentage (e.g. 10%, 100%) or a decibel value (e.g. 0dB, 20dB). If the volume specification start with a + or - the volume adjustment will be relative to the current sink volume. A single volume value affects all channels; if multiple volume values are given their number has to match the sink's number of channels.

get-source-volume SOURCE

``` Get the volume of the specified source (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index) displayed in the same format as the `info` command.

set-source-volume SOURCE VOLUME [VOLUME ...]

Set the volume of the specified source (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index). VOLUME can be specified as an integer (e.g. 2000, 16384), a linear factor (e.g. 0.4, 1.100), a percentage (e.g. 10%, 100%) or a decibel value (e.g. 0dB, 20dB). If the volume specification start with a + or - the volume adjustment will be relative to the current source volume. A single volume value affects all channels; if multiple volume values are given their number has to match the source's number of channels.

set-sink-input-volume INPUT VOLUME [VOLUME ...]

Set the volume of the specified sink input (identified by its numerical index). VOLUME can be specified as an integer (e.g. 2000, 16384), a linear factor (e.g. 0.4, 1.100), a percentage (e.g. 10%, 100%) or a decibel value (e.g. 0dB, 20dB). If the volume specification start with a + or - the volume adjustment will be relative to the current sink input volume. A single volume value affects all channels; if multiple volume values are given their number has to match the sink input's number of channels.

set-source-output-volume OUTPUT VOLUME [VOLUME ...]

Set the volume of the specified source output (identified by its numerical index). VOLUME can be specified as an integer (e.g. 2000, 16384), a linear factor (e.g. 0.4, 1.100), a percentage (e.g. 10%, 100%) or a decibel value (e.g. 0dB, 20dB). If the volume specification start with a + or - the volume adjustment will be relative to the current source output volume. A single volume value affects all channels; if multiple volume values are given their number has to match the source output's number of channels.

get-sink-mute SINK

Get the mute status of the specified sink (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index).

set-sink-mute SINK 1|0|toggle

Set the mute status of the specified sink (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index).

get-source-mute SOURCE

Get the mute status of the specified source (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index).

set-source-mute SOURCE 1|0|toggle

Set the mute status of the specified source (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index).

set-sink-input-mute INPUT 1|0|toggle

Set the mute status of the specified sink input (identified by its numerical index).

set-source-output-mute OUTPUT 1|0|toggle

Set the mute status of the specified source output (identified by its numerical index).

set-sink-formats SINK FORMATS

Set the supported formats of the specified sink (identified by its numerical index) if supported by the sink. FORMATS is specified as a semi-colon (;) separated list of formats in the form 'encoding[, key1=value1, key2=value2, ...]' (for example, AC3 at 32000, 44100 and 48000 Hz would be specified as 'ac3-iec61937, format.rate = "[ 32000, 44100, 48000 ]"'). See https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Documentation/User/SupportedAudioFormats/ for possible encodings.

send-message RECIPIENT MESSAGE MESSAGE_PARAMETERS

Send a message to the specified recipient object. If applicable an additional string containing message parameters can be specified. A string is returned as a response to the message. For available messages see https://cgit.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/tree/doc/messaging_api.txt.

subscribe

Subscribe to events, pactl does not exit by itself, but keeps waiting for new events.

Authors

The PulseAudio Developers <pulseaudio-discuss (at) lists (dot) freedesktop (dot) org>; PulseAudio is available from http://pulseaudio.org/

See Also

pulseaudio(1), pacmd(1)

Referenced By

pacat(1), pacmd(1), pasuspender(1), pasystray(1), pipewire-pulse.conf(5), pw-loopback(1), wf-recorder(1).

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