UDISKIE(8)

💖 UDISKIE(8) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the udiskie page — it's UDISKIE(8) if you're being formal, but we're not. Let's get into it 💅

✨ NAME ✨

udiskie — automounter for removable media. periodt.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

udiskie [OPTIONS]

udiskie-mount [OPTIONS] (-a | DEVICE...)

udiskie-umount [OPTIONS] (-a | PATH...)

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So like, udiskie is an udisks2 front-end written in python. Its whole main character purpose? Automatically mounting removable media, such as CDs or flash drives. It also has optional mount notifications, a GTK tray icon, and user level CLIs for manual mount and unmount operations. The media will be mounted in a new directory under /media or /run/media/USER/, using the device name if possible. no cap, that's the vibe.

💖 COMMON OPTIONS 💖

• -h, --help — Show help message and exit. (yes bestie, it helps 💅)
• -V, --version — Show help message and exit. (ik it says help, that's what the page says, don't come for me 😭)
• -v, --verbose — Verbose output. spill the tea.
• -q, --quiet — Quiet output. shhh.
• -c FILE, --config=FILE — Specify config file.
• -C, --no-config — Don't use any config file.

🔥 SHARED MOUNT AND DAEMON OPTIONS 🔥

• -p COMMAND, --password-prompt=COMMAND — Password retrieval command. The string is formatted with the device attributes as keyword arguments, e.g.:

-p "zenity --entry --hide-text --text 'Enter password for {device_presentation}:'"

• -P, --no-password-prompt — Disable unlocking of LUKS devices.

👑 DAEMON OPTIONS 👑

• -a, --automount — Enable automounting new devices (default).
• -A, --no-automount — Disable automounting new devices.
• -n, --notify — Enable pop-up notifications (default).
• -N, --no-notify — Disable pop-up notifications.
• -t, --tray — Show tray icon.
• -s, --smart-tray — Show tray icon that automatically hides when there is no action available.
• -T, --no-tray — Disable tray icon (default).
• -f PROGRAM, --file-manager=PROGRAM — Set program to open mounted directories. Default is 'xdg-open'. Pass an empty string to disable this feature.
• -F, --no-file-manager — Disable browsing.
• --terminal=PROGRAM — Set terminal command line to open mounted directories. Default is none! Pass an empty string to disable this feature.
• --no-terminal — Disable terminal action.
• --appindicator — Use AppIndicator3 for the status icon. Use this on Ubuntu/Unity if no icon is shown.
• --no-appindicator — Use Gtk.StatusIcon for the status icon (default).
• --password-cache MINUTES — Cache passwords for LUKS partitions and set the timeout.
• --no-password-cache — Never cache passwords (default).
• --event-hook COMMAND — Command to execute on device events. Command string be formatted using the event name and the list of device attributes (see below), e.g.:

--event-hook "zenity --info --text '{event}: {device_presentation}'"

• --no-event-hook — No notify command (default).

💅 MOUNT OPTIONS 💅

• -a, --all — Mount all handled devices.
• -r, --recursive — Recursively mount cleartext partitions after unlocking a LUKS device. This will happen by default when running the udiskie daemon.
• -R, --no-recursive — Disable recursive mounting (default).
• -o OPTIONS, --options=OPTIONS — Set mount options.

🎀 UNMOUNT OPTIONS 🎀

• -a, --all — Unmount all handled devices.
• -d, --detach — Detach drive by e.g. powering down its physical port.
• -D, --no-detach — Don't detach drive (default).
• -e, --eject — Eject media from the drive, e.g CDROM.
• -E, --no-eject — Don't eject media (default).
• -f, --force — Force removal (recursive unmounting).
• -F, --no-force — Don't force removal (default).
• -l, --lock — Lock device after unmounting (default).
• -L, --no-lock — Don't lock device.

🌈 EXAMPLE USAGE 🌈

Start udiskie in ~/.xinitrc:

udiskie &

Unmount media and power down USB device:

udiskie-umount --detach /media/Sticky

Mount all media:

udiskie-mount -a

Mount /dev/sdb1:

udiskie-mount /dev/sdb1

🧚 CONFIGURATION 🧚

The file .config/udiskie/config.yml can be used to configure defaults for command line parameters and customize further settings. The actual path may differ depending on $XDG_CONFIG_HOME. The file format is YAML, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAML. If you don't want to install PyYAML, it is possible to use an equivalent JSON file with the name config.json instead.

# This is an example (nonsense) configuration file for udiskie.

program_options:
  # Configure defaults for command line options

  tray:             auto    # [bool] Enable the tray icon. "auto"
                            # means auto-hide the tray icon when
                            # there are no handled devices.

  menu:             flat    # ["flat" | "nested"] Set the
                            # systray menu behaviour.

  automount:        false   # [bool] Enable automatic mounting.

  notify:           true    # [bool] Enable notifications.

  password_cache:   30      # [int] Password cache in minutes. Caching is
                            # disabled by default. It can be disabled
                            # explicitly by setting it to false

  file_manager:     xdg-open
    # [string] Set program to open directories. It will be invoked
    # with the folder path as its last command line argument.

  terminal:         'termite -d'
    # [string] Set terminal command line to open directories. It will be
    # invoked with the folder path as its last command line argument.

  password_prompt: ["gnome-keyring-query", "get", "{id_uuid}"]
    # [string|list] Set command to retrieve passwords. If specified
    # as a list it defines the ARGV array for the program call. If
    # specified as a string, it will be expanded in a shell-like
    # manner. Each string will be formatted using `str.format`. For a
    # list of device attributes, see below. The two special string values
    # "builtin:gui" and "builtin:tty" signify to use udiskie's
    # builtin password prompt.

  event_hook: "zenity --info --text '{event}: {device_presentation}'"
    # [string|list] Set command to be executed on any device event.
    # This is specified like `password_prompt`.

device_config:

  # List of device option rules. Each item can match any combination of device
  # attributes. Additionally, it defines the resulting action (see below).
  # Any rule can contain multiple filters (AND) and multiple actions.
  # Only the first matching rule that defines a given action is used.
  # The rules defined here are simply prepended to the builtin device rules,
  # so that it is possible to completely overwrite the defaults by specifying
  # a catch-all rule (i.e. a rule without device attributes).
  # Filter rules can be passed a list of values, in which case the rule is matched
  # if the attribute matches any of the values in the list.

- device_file: /dev/dm-5    # [filter]
  ignore:      false        # [action] never ignore this device
- id_uuid:                  # [filter] match by device UUID
  - 9d53-13ba               # This rule matches on either of these uids
  - 8675-309a
  options: [noexec, nodev]  # [action] mount options can be given as list
  ignore:  false            # [action] never ignore this device (even if fs=FAT)
  automount: false          # [action] do not automount this device
- id_type: vfat             # [filter] match file system type
  ignore:  true             # [action] ignore all FAT devices

- id_type: ntfs             # [filter] (optional)
  skip: true                # [action] skip all further (even builtin) rules
                            # for all matched devices, and resolve action result
                            # on parent device

- ignore:    true           # never mount/unmount or even show this in the GUI
  automount: false          # show but do not automount this device
  options: []               # additional options to be passed when mounting

- id_uuid: ...              # [filter] match device by UUID
  keyfile: /path/to/keyfile # [action] use keyfile to unlock a luks encrypted
                            # device, bypassing the password prompt

  mount_options:              # [deprecated] do not use
  ignore_device:              # [deprecated] do not use

  notifications:
    # Customize which notifications are shown for how long. Possible
    # values are:
    #   positive number         timeout in seconds
    #   false                   disable
    #   -1                      use the libnotify default timeout

    timeout:          1.5     # set the default for all notifications

    # Specify only if you want to overwrite the default:
    device_mounted:   5       # mount notification
    device_unmounted: false   # unmount notification
    device_added:     false   # device has appeared
    device_removed:   false   # device has disappeared
    device_unlocked:  -1      # encrypted device was unlocked
    device_locked:    -1      # encrypted device was locked
    job_failed:       -1      # mount/unlock/.. has failed

  quickmenu_actions: [mount, unmount, unlock, terminal, detach, delete]
    # List of actions to be shown in the quickmenu or the special value 'all'.
    # The quickmenu is shown on left-click if using flat menu type.

  notification_actions:
    # Define which actions should be shown on notifications. Note that there
    # are currently only a limited set of actions available for each
    # notification. Events that are not explicitly specified show the default
    # set of actions. Specify an empty list if you don't want to see any
    # notification for the specified event:

    device_mounted:   [browse]
    device_added:     [mount]

  icon_names:
    # Customize the icon set used by the tray widget. Each entry
    # specifies a list of icon names. The first installed icon from
    # that list will be used.

    media:   [drive-removable-media, media-optical]
    browse:  [document-open, folder-open]
    terminal: [terminal, terminator, xfce-terminal]
    mount:   [udiskie-mount]
    unmount: [udiskie-unmount]
    unlock:  [udiskie-unlock]
    lock:    [udiskie-lock]
    eject:   [udiskie-eject, media-eject]
    detach:  [udiskie-detach]
    delete:  [udiskie-eject]
    quit:    [application-exit]

All keys are optional. Reasonable defaults are used if you leave them unspecified.

🦋 DEVICE ATTRIBUTES

okay so bestie, some of the config entries up there 👆 get to use device attributes. Here's the whole list that's available right now — but no cap, the manpage literally says there's no guarantee they'll stay available, so don't get too attached 💅

• is_drive
• is_block
• is_partition_table
• is_partition
• is_filesystem
• is_luks
• is_loop
• is_toplevel
• is_detachable
• is_ejectable
• has_media
• device_file — block device path, e.g. "/dev/sdb1"
• device_presentation — display string, e.g. "/dev/sdb1"
• device_size — block device size
• device_id — unique, persistent device identifier
• id_usage — E.g. "filesystem" or "crypto"
• is_crypto
• is_ignored
• id_type — E.g. "ext4" or "crypto_LUKS"
• id_label — device label
• id_uuid — device UUID
• is_luks_cleartext
• is_external — udisks flag HintSystem=false
• is_systeminternal — udisks flag HintSystem=true
• is_mounted
• mount_paths — list of mount paths
• mount_path — any mount path
• is_unlocked
• in_use — device or any of its children mounted
• should_automount
• ui_label
• loop_file — file backing the loop device
• setup_by_uid — user that setup the loop device
• autoclear — automatically delete loop device after use
• symlinks
• drive_model
• drive_vendor
• drive_label
• ui_device_label
• ui_device_presentation
• ui_id_label
• ui_id_uuid

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👀 SEE ALSO

• udisks(1)

and fr fr, the wiki is right here if you wanna go deeper:

https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/udisks/

💌 CONTACT

Got a bug? A question? A galaxy-brain feature idea? 🫶 The github issues are the place — report issues, ask general questions, or suggest new features, all welcome. And if you don't have a github or just don't vibe with it, you can email me instead, no judgement:

https://github.com/coldfix/udiskie/issues

thomas@coldfix.de

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🌸 and that's a wrap on the whole page, bestie! udiskie, version 08/04/2026, from the UDISKIE(8) manual — go mount something iconic. periodt 💖✨👑