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Most of the application can show nicely formatted notification on events that appear on top right corner of the screen. I'm about to write a bash script that will do fairy long processing in the background and I really want to know when it is finished. How can I show that nice notification from a bash script?

Jonik
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vava
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    [How can I trigger a notification when a job/process ends?](http://superuser.com/q/345447/241386) – phuclv Jul 27 '15 at 11:59
  • Bonus question: Can you put the notification on certain output only? What if you use screen mirroring? – jarno Feb 03 '20 at 13:36

7 Answers7

159

If you're using the new notification system in Jaunty, you want the notify-send command

notify-send - a program to send desktop notifications

SYNOPSIS

With notify-send you can sends desktop notifications to the user via
a notification daemon from the command line.  These notifications can be
used to inform the user about an event or display some form of information
without getting in the user's way.

OPTIONS

-u, --urgency=LEVEL
Specifies the urgency level (low, normal, critical).

-t, --expire-time=TIME
    Specifies the timeout in milliseconds at which to expire the notification.
-i, --icon=ICON[,ICON...]
    Specifies an icon filename or stock icon to display.
-c, --category=TYPE[,TYPE...]
    Specifies the notification category.
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    Thanks, just found it myself :) apt-get install libnotify-bin have to be run before to get it. – vava Aug 29 '09 at 10:39
  • How does the root user send a message from crons, init.d, etc? – Lance Caraccioli Nov 22 '13 at 04:38
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    Eg: notify-send Test "Hello World" – Thaha kp Jun 04 '14 at 08:26
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    The --expire-time parameter does not work on Ubuntu thanks to this "feature" (bug). https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/notify-osd/+bug/390508 – axiopisty Apr 18 '16 at 15:43
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    I found that `notify-send` is inhibited during video/audio playback. While this is a valid use case, if you still want to see them then **--urgency=critical** must be added. – ccpizza Feb 20 '17 at 07:36
  • I'm using jessie (Linux raspberrypi 4.4.50-v7+), on raspberry, install notify 'libnotify-bin', but it don't bring any notification! -> notify-send Test "Hello World" – Dr.jacky Mar 11 '17 at 09:22
  • Thanks buddy. I used this to send me a notification every 10 minutes to blink eyes using cron as a reminder to follow 20-20 (10-10 rule in my case) rule. ;) – Jasser Oct 28 '17 at 15:40
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    To make it pop up a window with an "OK" and "Cancel" button use `notify-send --expire-time=0 "Hello World"` or `notify-send -t 0 "Hello world"` – Gabriel Staples Apr 02 '18 at 17:55
  • Note, however, that otherwise the `--expire-time` or `-t` option is worthless (ignored), unfortunately, and the default of 10 sec or so applies to all notifications regardless of what you want. Pretty stupid if you ask me! https://askubuntu.com/questions/110969/notify-send-ignores-timeout – Gabriel Staples Apr 02 '18 at 18:01
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    I couldn't take it; I had to write my own answer :) https://superuser.com/a/1310142/425838 – Gabriel Staples Apr 02 '18 at 18:15
42

Found another way, through Zenity

echo 'message:hi' | zenity --notification --listen

or like this:

zenity --notification --text "System update necessary!"

(This also has the benefit of already being installed on Ubuntu.)

kolypto
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vava
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17

Tested on Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, 20.04. Screenshots from Ubuntu 20.04.

  1. [WORKS WELL] Popup notification that auto-closes after 4~10 seconds (somehow tied to your OS settings?):

    notify-send "Hello world"

    enter image description here
    Source: https://superuser.com/a/31919/425838

  2. Popup window with buttons to click:

    1. Window does NOT get auto-focus: Source: myself; note: for older Unity-based versions of Ubuntu, such as 16.04, -t is ignored for all values except 0--how stupid. :(. For newer Gnome-based versions of Ubuntu, such as 18.04 or 20.04, -t is ignored entirely. Therefore, on older Unity-based versions of Ubuntu, such as 16.04, using -t 0 causes buttons to show up, but on newer Gnome-based versions, it does NOT. That means that for the Ubuntu 20.04 screenshot shown below, the behavior and look of notify-send -t 0 "Hello world" is exactly identical to notify-send "Hello world" above.

      notify-send -t 0 "Hello world"

      enter image description here

      On Ubuntu 18.04 or 20.04 or later, just add -u critical to the command instead to get it to stay open indefinitely until you click anywhere on it!:

      notify-send -u critical "Hello world"

      enter image description here
      Source: @lucidbrot's comment below this answer, plus my own testing.

    2. OR Window DOES get auto-focus:

      zenity --info --title "Hello" --text "World"

      Note: the window will NOT close until you click the OK button.
      enter image description here
      Source: https://askubuntu.com/a/804475/327339

  3. [MY FAVORITE] The window auto-closes after the specified --timeout in seconds, OR after you click the "OK" button!

    zenity --info --title "Hello" --text "World" --timeout=2

    Note: the window WILL automatically close after the specified timeout above, in seconds!
    enter image description here
    Source: myself reading the man pages: man zenity

  4. [super ugly-looking]

    xmessage 'hello world'

    Note: the window will NOT close until you click the okay button.
    enter image description here
    Source: http://www.linux-commands-examples.com/xmessage

Play sounds too

  1. If you want to play sounds too, along with the window popup, to signify the completion of a command or something, see my other answer here: AskUbuntu.com: How to make a sound once a process is complete?
Gabriel Staples
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    My notification with `-t 0` disappears by itself unless the level is `critical` just like the others. I'm on Ubuntu 18.04. But the other options work great, and the `[super ugly-looking]` made me laugh – lucidbrot Jul 30 '20 at 10:13
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    very detail. Thank you – Russo May 27 '22 at 04:53
13

For KDE users:

$ kdialog --title "Long process completed!" --passivepopup "This popup will disappear in 5 seconds" 5 &
Community
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kolypto
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12

There's also xmessage that will pop-up a window, so it should work on any X11 system.

Pro: It also allows interactively prompting the user with buttons.

Con: Like any pop-up alert, it typically receives focus, so if you're in the middle of typing it can disappear before you read the message.

Stephen Ostermiller
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NVRAM
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    Con: It looks ugly as hell, and also is a super tiny window which is not always obvious to the user. Anyways, it is universal though. :) – Nik Reiman May 06 '13 at 11:37
  • xmessage doesn't work in Fedora though. Its not installed by default. – Abhay Mittal Jun 03 '14 at 16:47
  • It's not available in the default Xorg installation of Arch Linux either. – friederbluemle Jan 22 '18 at 08:06
  • You can also get a popup window with an "OK" and "Cancel" button via `notify-send --expire-time=0 "Hello World"` or `notify-send -t 0 "Hello world"`. Otherwise, however, the `-t` option is ignored due to some stupid "design decisions": https://askubuntu.com/questions/110969/notify-send-ignores-timeout – Gabriel Staples Apr 02 '18 at 18:04
  • I couldn't take it; I had to write my own answer :) https://superuser.com/a/1310142/425838 – Gabriel Staples Apr 02 '18 at 18:15
4

There exists a cross-platform solution called Yfiton:

$ yfiton -n desktop -Pmessage="Lunch time!" -Pposition=TOP_RIGHT
Laurent
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3

In a shell script, you can also call the osd_cat utility from libxosd.

geek
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    This is a little bit different as it doesn't use ubuntu desktop notifications. – vava Aug 29 '09 at 13:43
  • Yes, this is an alternative that you can use with any Linux distribution and any WM/DE. – geek Aug 30 '09 at 13:39