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Accepted
Tim
Asked: 2014-07-07 07:56:55 +0800 CST

Are there commands to control the Spotify for Linux preview? (e.g. Pause)?

  • 772

I am trying to be able to play, pause, chose next track or previous track from command line, but unfortunately no one seems to know how to do this (I have goggled repeatedly). I need it to be a command so that I can use it with blue proximity, so pause when I walk away. Are there any commands for this?

command-line

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The Spotify client has supported the MPRIS2 DBUS specification for ~4 years. Simply put this means most media remote controls should be able to control it.

    If you need command-line access, you can talk to it directly over DBUS. Here's an example I stole from Fran Diéguez:

    dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Pause

    For more commands, see the MPRIS2 Player specifications.

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  2. The following command works for me (Play or Pause):

    qdbus org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause
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  3. SP is a simple and effective command line tool to control spotify. It uses DBUS internally.

    To install:

    curl https://gist.githubusercontent.com/wandernauta/6800547/raw/db881a9100eb9b1e684c99962bde086a47ebcf08/sp | sudo tee /usr/local/bin/sp
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/sp
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  4. DBus commands for controlling spotify (from here), working for me on 17.10:

    Play

    dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Play

    Pause

    dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Pause

    Play/Pause toggle

    dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause

    Previous

    dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Previous

    Next

    dbus-send --print-reply --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Next

    I have bound play/pause toggle to F12 in gnome.

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