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Heisenberg
Asked: 2020-12-10 02:36:25 +0800 CST

Command to get list of all media playing

  • 772

I want to get a list of all media playing. Somewhat like the notification bar shows you. Is there a command to do the same?

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pulseaudio command-line alsa media

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    That feature s implemented with MPRIS (Media Player Remote Interfacing Specification), a standard D-Bus interface.

    D-Bus with dbus-send

    You can control it with DBUS commands manually, but I find it "a little bit" complicated for everyday use:

    # Get current Status
dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify \
  /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Get \
  string:'org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player' \
  string:'PlaybackStatus'

# Get Metadata of currently playing song (if Playing)
dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify \
  /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Get \
  string:'org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player' \
  string:'Metadata'

    (Spotify is the player, change that accordingly)

    playerctl

    Or simply use playerctl:

    playerctl status
playerctl metadata

    Install with apt:

    sudo apt install playerctl

    Python's D-Bus module

    You can also control players with python's dbus module:

    #!/usr/bin/env python3
import dbus
bus = dbus.SessionBus()
for service in bus.list_names():
    if service.startswith('org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.'):
        player = dbus.SessionBus().get_object(service, '/org/mpris/MediaPlayer2')

        status=player.Get('org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player', 'PlaybackStatus', dbus_interface='org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties')
        print(status)

        metadata = player.Get('org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player', 'Metadata', dbus_interface='org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties')
        print(metadata)
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