How do you mute the sound system from the command line?
6 Answers
Assuming you're using ALSA driver, run:
amixer set Master mute
amixer set Master unmute
Or, you can just use:
amixer set Master toggle
to toggle mute on and off.
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8for me / my system (precise), this only goes one way: off / mute. Neither toggle nor unmute bring the music back on. Any ideas as to why?? May 8, 2012 at 13:12
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4This solution is for pure Alsa. For Alsa with pulseaudio, use the command from Tim's answer. Or don't touch the command and instead configure Alsa as in this answer. Else, @nutty about natty's problem of not being able to unmute results.– taniusFeb 17, 2016 at 1:32
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on Ubuntu Server 14.04 "Master" was not available as a simple control. I used "Speaker" in its place. I found the substitution by running
sudo amixer
and finding the line in the output that matchedSimple mixer control 'Speaker',0
– brycemcdOct 2, 2016 at 20:11
This worked for me when others didn't:
amixer -q -D pulse sset Master toggle
This is from the link in nutty about natty's comment to the first answer:
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Note: The accepted answer by @goric doesn't work when headphones or earphones are plugged in, use this.– user423626May 27, 2016 at 12:34
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1Or, less ambiguously than "toggle", you can use
amixer -q -D pulse sset Master mute
andamixer -q -D pulse sset Master unmute
. Works great on Ubuntu 16.04– CPBLJun 30, 2016 at 13:00
I'm using pactl
in my scripts. From man page:
set-sink-mute SINK 1|0|toggle
: Set the mute status of the specified sink (identified by its symbolic name or numerical index)
To mute:
pactl set-sink-mute @DEFAULT_SINK@ true
To unmute:
pactl set-sink-mute @DEFAULT_SINK@ false
To toggle:
pactl set-sink-mute @DEFAULT_SINK@ toggle
Use 0
instead of @DEFAULT_SINK@
to set the sink with numerical index 0. true=="1", false=="0".
Tested on Ubuntu 12.10.
In my setup sometimes amixer unmute fails for some reason.
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LIkely, this is the proper way to perform the operation on modern Ubuntu versions. Works on 16.04 (amixer doesn't).– MarcusFeb 25, 2017 at 19:42
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2You can also toggle from mute to unmute and back:
pactl set-sink-mute 0 toggle
Nov 25, 2019 at 11:12 -
1Sink 0 might not be the relevant one. For me, 0 was the monitor's output and 1 the laptop speakers, so I needed to do
pactl set-sink-mute 1 0
to unmute them.– nnnmmmSep 28, 2020 at 8:26 -
On the terminal type this to mute
amixer set Master mute
type
amixer set Master unmute
Tested on my Ubuntu 10.10.
If you are using alsa
follow goric answer.
PulseAudio is better, but not so simple: pactl set-sink-mute 0 1
Do the work for the first device, but not if you are using headphones of another sink output.
The better way is to check with pactl info
and get the Default Sink
to use.
DEFAULT_SINK=$(pactl info | grep "Default Sink" | cut -d " " -f3)
Then to mute:
pactl set-sink-mute "$DEFAULT_SINK" "1"
Or unmute:
pactl set-sink-mute "$DEFAULT_SINK" "0"
I wrote a script to manage pulseaudio in my note. If you want to use, save it as volume
, provide execute permissions chmod +x volume
and add it to your path ln -sv $PWD/volume /usr/local/bin/
. Here my script:
#!/bin/bash
# script name: volume
# Author: glaudistong at gmail.com
# depends on: yad, coreutils, pulseaudio
ps -ef | grep "yad" | grep -E "Volume [^+\-]" | tr -s " " | cut -d " " -f2 | xargs -i kill "{}" 2>/dev/null
DEFAULT_SINK=$(pactl info | grep "Default Sink" | cut -d " " -f3)
DEFAULT_SOURCE=$(pactl info | grep "Default Source" | cut -d " " -f3)
case "$1" in
init)
{
ps -fe | grep yad | grep -q volume ||
{
yad --notification --command "volume up" --text "+ Volume +" --image ~/Pictures/volume-up-dark.png &
yad --notification --command "volume down" --text "- Volume -" --image ~/Pictures/volume-down-dark.png &
}
};;
up)
{
pactl set-sink-volume "$DEFAULT_SINK" +5%
P=$(pactl list | grep -E "Name: $DEFAULT_SINK$|Volume" | grep "Name:" -A1 | tail -1 | cut -d% -f1 | cut -d/ -f2 | tr -d " ")
iconl="$(echo -ne "\U1F50A")"
iconr="$(echo -ne "\U1F56A")"
timeout .6 yad --progress --percentage "$P" --timeout 1 --no-buttons --undecorated --text="$iconl Volume $P% $iconr" --no-focus --center --skip-taskbar --on-top &
};;
down)
{
pactl set-sink-volume "$DEFAULT_SINK" -5%
P=$(pactl list | grep -E "Name: $DEFAULT_SINK$|Volume" | grep "Name:" -A1 | tail -1 | cut -d% -f1 | cut -d/ -f2 | tr -d " ")
iconl="$(echo -ne "\U1F509")"
iconr="$(echo -ne "\U1F569")"
timeout .6 yad --progress --percentage "$P" --timeout 1 --no-buttons --undecorated --text="$iconl Volume $P% $iconr" --no-focus --center --skip-taskbar --on-top &
};;
mute)
{
ismute=$(pactl list | grep -E "Name: $DEFAULT_SINK$|Mute" | grep "Name:" -A1 | tail -1 |cut -d: -f2| tr -d " ")
if [ "$ismute" == no ]; then
s=1
P=0
icon="$(echo -ne "\U1F507")"
else
P=$(pactl list | grep -E "Name: $DEFAULT_SINK$|Volume" | grep "Name:" -A1 | tail -1 | cut -d% -f1 | cut -d/ -f2 | tr -d " ")
icon="🔊"
s=0
fi
pactl set-sink-mute "$DEFAULT_SINK" "$s"
echo $s > /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/leds/platform::mute/brightness
timeout .6 yad --progress --percentage "$P" --timeout 1 --no-buttons --undecorated --text="$icon Volume $P%" --no-focus --center --skip-taskbar --on-top &
};;
mic-up)
{
pactl set-source-volume "$DEFAULT_SOURCE" +5%
P=$(pactl list | grep -E "Name: $DEFAULT_SOURCE$|Volume" | grep "Name:" -A1 | tail -1 | cut -d% -f1 | cut -d/ -f2 | tr -d " ")
icon="$(echo -en "\U1F3A4")"
timeout .6 yad --progress --percentage "$P" --timeout 1 --no-buttons --undecorated --text="$icon Volume Mic $P%" --no-focus --center --skip-taskbar --on-top &
};;
mic-down)
{
pactl set-source-volume "$DEFAULT_SOURCE" -5%
icon="$(echo -en "\U1F3A4")"
P=$(pactl list | grep -E "Name: $DEFAULT_SOURCE$|Volume" | grep "Name:" -A1 | tail -1 | cut -d% -f1 | cut -d/ -f2 | tr -d " ")
timeout .6 yad --progress --percentage "$P" --timeout 1 --no-buttons --undecorated --text="$icon Volume Mic $P%" --no-focus --center --skip-taskbar --on-top &
};;
mic-mute)
{
ismute=$(pactl list | grep -E "Name: $DEFAULT_SOURCE$|Mute" | grep "Name:" -A1 | tail -1 |cut -d: -f2| tr -d " ")
if [ "$ismute" == no ]; then
s=1
P=0
icon="$(echo -en "\U1F507\U1F3A4")"
else
P=$(pactl list | grep -E "Name: $DEFAULT_SOURCE$|Volume" | grep "Name:" -A1 | tail -1 | cut -d% -f1 | cut -d/ -f2 | tr -d " ")
s=0
icon="$(echo -en "\U1F3A4")"
fi
pactl set-source-mute "$DEFAULT_SOURCE" "$s"
echo $s > /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/leds/platform::micmute/brightness
timeout .6 yad --progress --percentage "$P" --timeout 1 --no-buttons --undecorated --text="$icon Volume Mic $P%" --no-focus --center --skip-taskbar --on-top &
};;
*)
echo invalid option;;
esac;
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2As a minor improvement, you can reference the default sink/source with a value of
@DEFAULT_SINK@
and@DEFAULT_SOURCE@
respectively, instead of grepping the output of a query. Aug 18, 2023 at 5:46
if your are using pulseaudio as the sound server then do this
pactl -- set-sink-mute @DEFAULT_SINK@ toggle # Also true/false to mute/unmute
to mute and unmute
if using alsa then use this
amixer sset 'Master' toggle
to mute and unmute