NOTIFY-SEND(1)

💖 NAME 💖

ok so notify-send — it's a program to send desktop notifications 🦋 like literally it pings your notification daemon from the command line, no big deal, just main character energy ✨

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

notify-send [OPTIONS] {summary} [body]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

bestie. with notify-send you can send desktop notifications to the user through a notification daemon, straight from the command line 💅 no GUI needed, no fuss, we love that for us.

these notifications are perfect for telling the user about an event, or just showing them some info, all without getting in their way. it's giving respectful. it's giving polite. it's giving iconic 👑

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -?, --help — shows the help and dips out, bye 💨
• -a, --app-name=APP_NAME — sets the app name for the notification, so everyone knows who's talking 🫶
• -A, --action=[NAME=]Text... — picks the actions to show the user. heads up, this one implies --wait, so it's gonna sit there and wait for the user to actually do something. you can set it multiple times if you're feeling extra 💖 the NAME of the action gets output to stdout. and if you don't give a NAME? then the numerical index of the option is used instead, starting from 1. slay.
• --selected-action-fd=FILE_DESCRIPTOR — the file descriptor where the action chosen by the user gets written 📝
• --activation-token-fd=FILE_DESCRIPTOR — the file descriptor where the action activation token gets written. note: the daemon has to support it, so it's a vibe check situation 😭
• -u, --urgency=LEVEL — sets the urgency level. your options are low, normal, critical 🔥
• -t, --expire-time=TIME — how long, in milliseconds, the notification stays on screen ⏰

real talk though: not every implementation actually uses this parameter 😬 GNOME Shell and Notify OSD always ignore it, and Plasma ignores it for notifications with the critical urgency level. so like… set it, but don't be shocked.

• -i, --icon=ICON — sets an icon filename or a stock icon to display 🌈
• -n, --app-icon=ICON — sets an application icon filename or app icon name. the server may or may not display it, so it's giving maybe 👀
• -c, --category=TYPE[,TYPE...] — sets the notification category 🏷️
• -h, --hint=TYPE:NAME:VALUE — passes some basic extra data along. valid types are BOOLEAN, INT, DOUBLE, STRING, BYTE and VARIANT 💫
• -p, --print-id — prints the notification ID 🆔
• --id-fd=FILE_DESCRIPTOR — the file descriptor where the notification ID gets written ✍️
• -r, --replace-id=REPLACE_ID — the ID of the notification you want to replace ♻️
• -w, --wait — waits for the notification to be closed before exiting. and if the expire-time is set, that gets used as the maximum waiting time, so it won't wait forever bestie ⏳
• -e, --transient — shows a transient notification. transient notifications by-pass the server's persistence capability, if it even has one. which means it won't be preserved until the user acknowledges it. it's a one-shot, no saving it for later 💀

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

the Desktop Notification Spec lives over at https://specifications.freedesktop.org/notification-spec/ — go read it, iykyk 📖

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💜 AUTHORS 💜

• Andre Filipe de Assuncao e Brito <decko@noisemakers.org> — Original author 👑
• Paul van Tilburg <paulvt@debian.org> — Original author 👑
• Riccardo Setti <giskard@debian.org> — Original author 👑

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ok that's the whole thing, you're basically a notification wizard now 🧚‍♀️✨ this page came from libnotify and it's the NOTIFY-SEND(1) manual, fr fr. go forth and notify, bestie 💖🌸🎀