KEWRC(5)

🎀 KEWRC(5) 🎀

okay bestie, welcome to the kewrc manual page, section 5 of the File Formats Manual — this is literally the whole config file for kew, and we're gonna go through it together 💖

✨ NAME ✨

kewrc — the configuration file for kew 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

~/.config/kew/kewrc (Linux/FreeBSD/Android),
~/Library/Preferences/kew/kewrc (macOS)

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So. kewrc is the config file for kew(1), which is a terminal music player, and it is so good. The file is written in INI-style syntax — it's divided into named sections that live inside square brackets, and each section holds key=value pairs. Any line that starts with # is a comment 💅

Here's the thing though, and lowkey this matters: kew does not write to this file except when the path command is run. Nope. Runtime changes you make from inside the app get tracked in kewstaterc(5) instead, and those settings take precedence over the corresponding values in kewrc. so the state file is the main character here, fr fr 👑

And if you delete kewrc? Iconic behaviour honestly. kew just regenerates it on next launch, with all available settings and their defaults 🌈

---

🌸 MISCELLANEOUS SECTION 🌸

These are the settings living in the [miscellaneous] section ✨

• path path — the path to your music library directory. Default: ~/Music.
• useArtistsDb bool — turn on the artist database, which is what gives you those clickable artist links in track view. Default: 1.
• allowNotifications bool — enable desktop notifications. Default: 1.
• stripTrackNumbers bool — removes leading track numbers from file names as they're displayed in the library and playlist views. Default: 1.
• searchHierarchy bool — lets search terms match in order across directory and file names. Default: 0.
• hideLogo bool — hides the kew logo. Default: 0.
• hideHelp bool — hides the help line. Default: 0.
• hideFooter bool — hides the footer. Default: 0.
• hideTimeStatus bool — hides the track time line from track view. Default: 0.
• simpleTimeStatus bool — toggles display of kHz and bitrate alongside the time status. Default: 1.
• hideSideCover bool — hides the cover art shown on the left-hand side when a song is playing, in most views. Default: 0.
• collapseTopLevel bool — shows only top-level folders in the library view. Default: 0.
• autoCloseFolders bool — closes opened folders when you navigate away in Library and Search. Set it to 0 to keep multiple folders open until each one is closed. Default: 1.
• autoResume bool — resumes the last playing song automatically when kew starts. Default: 0.
• titleDelay bool — enables the animated (scrolling) song title. Set to 0 to disable. Default: 1.
• quitOnStop bool — exits kew after the whole playlist has finished playing. This is equivalent to the --quitonstop command-line flag. Default: 0.
• clearListClearsAll bool — whether clearing the playlist also removes the currently playing song. Default: 1.
• hideGlimmeringText bool — hides the glimmering text effect on the bottom row. Default: 0.
• replayGainCheckFirst int — which ReplayGain value gets checked first 👀
  • 0 — track
  • 1 — album
  • 2 — disabled
  • 3 — auto

Default: 3.

• saveRepeatShuffleSettings bool — persists the repeat and shuffle state between sessions. Default: 0.
• repeatState int — repeat mode 🌀
  • 0 — off
  • 1 — repeat track
  • 2 — repeat list

Default: 0.

• shuffleEnabled bool — enables shuffle playback. Default: 0.
• trackTitleAsWindowTitle bool — sets the terminal window title to the title of the currently playing track. Default: 1.

---

💜 COLORS SECTION 💜

Settings in the [colors] section, because aesthetics are not optional ✨

• theme name — the name of the theme file to load, located in ~/.config/kew/themes (Linux/FreeBSD/Android) or ~/Library/Preferences/kew/themes (macOS). Empty selects the default theme.
• colorMode int — selects the source of the color palette 🎨
  • 0 — 16-bit color palette from the default theme
  • 1 — colors derived from the One Album Color theme
  • 2 — colors derived from the TrueColor theme
  • 3 — colors derived from the Album Colors theme
  • 4 — neutral, devoid of color

Default: 3.

---

🦋 CROSSFADE SECTION 🦋

Settings in the [crossfade] section, for the smooth transitions bestie 🌊

• alwaysCrossfade bool — crossfade at the end of every song. Default: 0.
• fadeEnterSongMs ms — fade in a song starting at this track time, in milliseconds. Default: 0.
• fadeQuickMs ms — duration, in milliseconds, of a quick fade. Default: 3000.
• fadeMediumMs ms — duration, in milliseconds, of a medium fade. Default: 5000.
• fadeSlowMs ms — duration, in milliseconds, of a slow fade. Default: 10000.

---

🎀 TRACK COVER SECTION 🎀

Settings in the [track cover] section — album art rights!! 🖼️

• coverEnabled bool — enables rendering of cover art. Default: 1.
• coverAnsi bool — renders covers using ASCII/ANSI art mode. Default: 0.
• coverStyle style — the cover art render style. One of auto, kitty, sixels, block, braille, ascii, dot, vhalf, or quad. Default: auto.

---

🐭 MOUSE SECTION 🐭

Settings in the [mouse] section.

• mouseEnabled bool — enables mouse support. Default: 1.

---

💀 DISCORD SECTION 💀

Settings in the [discord] section.

• discordRPCEnabled bool — shows now-playing status via Discord Rich Presence. Note that enabling this reveals your listening habits to Discord 👀💀 Default: 0.

bestie, genuinely, read that one again. it tells Discord what you're listening to. your entire music taste. out loud. in public. just so you know 💀

---

🧚 CHROMA SECTION 🧚

Settings in the [chroma] section, for the visualizer situation 🎵

• chromaPath path — path to visualizer presets.
• chromaDevice name — the name of the audio device that Chroma should use, for example Pipewire Server.
• visualizationsMode bool — preferred visualizations mode. Either 0 for ASCII or 1 for sixels. Chroma is ASCII only.
• visualizationsFps int — visualizations frame per second.
• visualizationsShowPresetInfo bool — show preset author and name, works for pmstream. Either 1 for show or 0 for not showing.

---

⭐ VISUALIZER SECTION ⭐

Settings in the [visualizer] section — the part everyone screenshots 📸

• visualizerColorType int — visualizer color mode 🌈
  • 0 — lighten
  • 1 — flat
  • 2 — reversed lighten
  • 3 — party
  • 4 — vibrant
  • 5 — lum vibrant
  • 6 — binning
  • 7 — two color gradient
  • 8 — off

Default: 3.

• visualizerHeight n — height of the visualizer, in rows. Default: 6.
• visualizerBrailleMode bool — renders the visualizer using Braille dots instead of bars. Default: 0.
• visualizerBarWidth int — bar width mode.
  • 0 — thin bars
  • 1 — bars twice the width
  • 2 — auto (depends on window size)

Default: 2.

---

🔥 PROGRESS BAR SECTION 🔥

Settings in the [progress bar] section, and these control the appearance of the track progress bar 🎚️ Each character setting takes a single glyph (which may be an empty space); the even/odd variants let the bar alternate between two glyphs across its length. When you're editing, always supply every value, including any that are blank spaces, or the bar's appearance will be corrupted. like, genuinely corrupted. not a vibe.

• progressBarElapsedEvenChar char — glyph for even-indexed positions already elapsed. Default: −(U+2501).
• progressBarElapsedOddChar char — glyph for odd-indexed positions already elapsed. Default: −(U+2501).
• progressBarApproachingEvenChar char — glyph for even-indexed positions not yet reached. Default: −(U+2501).
• progressBarApproachingOddChar char — glyph for odd-indexed positions not yet reached. Default: −(U+2501).
• progressBarCurrentEvenChar char — glyph for the current position when it's on an even index. Default: −(U+2501).
• progressBarCurrentOddChar char — glyph for the current position when it's on an odd index. Default: −(U+2501).

Commented-out presets are provided in the generated file as examples, including a "pill muncher" style (using • (ᗧ) glyphs) and a dotted style using □ characters. Uncomment and adapt a full set of six values to switch styles 🍓

---

👑 KEY BINDINGS SECTION 👑

The [key bindings] section holds your custom key binding assignments, iykyk ⌨️

Enter is bound to expandFolder by default. It opens a selected folder; pressing it again enqueues or dequeues that folder. If both actions are explicitly bound to the same key, expandFolder takes precedence so the first press still opens the folder. The collapseFolder and switchSearchFocus actions have no default binding. The latter toggles between editing the search query and navigating results with printable keys. To enable them, add bindings such as:

bind = Shift+e, collapseFolder
bind = Ctrl+f, switchSearchFocus

Note: Ctrl+h, Ctrl+i, and Ctrl+m are indistinguishable from Backspace, Tab, and Enter respectively at the terminal level, and cannot be bound separately from them. not me finding out the hard way 😭

---

💖 FILES 💖

• ~/.config/kew/kewrc — configuration file on Linux, FreeBSD, and Android.
• ~/Library/Preferences/kew/kewrc — configuration file on macOS.
• ~/.config/kew/themes
• ~/Library/Preferences/kew/themes — directories where theme files are looked up.

---

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

kew(1), kewstaterc(5) — go read those next, bestie, they're both iconic 🫶

---

and that's the whole page, no cap 💅 this was kew, dated 2026-09-24, living in section KEWRC(5) of the File Formats Manual — slay, go configure your music player, you've got this ✨🎀