POLYBAR(1) Polybar User Manual POLYBAR(1)

polybar - A fast and easy-to-use tool status bar

polybar [OPTIONS]... [BAR]

Polybar aims to help users build beautiful and highly customizable status bars for their desktop environment, without the need of having a black belt in shell scripting. If the BAR argument is not provided and the configuration file only contains one bar definition, polybar will display this bar.

Display help text and exit

Display build details and exit

Set the logging verbosity (default: notice)
LEVEL is one of: error, warning, notice, info, trace


Be quiet (will override -l)

Specify the path to the configuration file. By default, the configuration file is loaded from:
  • $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/polybar/config
  • $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/polybar/config.ini
  • $HOME/.config/polybar/config
  • $HOME/.config/polybar/config.ini
  • $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/polybar/config.ini
  • /etc/xdg/polybar/config.ini (only if XDG_CONFIG_DIRS is not set)
  • /etc/polybar/config.ini


Reload the application when the config file has been modified

Print the value of the specified parameter PARAM in bar section and exit

Print list of available monitors and exit.
If some monitors are cloned, this will exclude all but one of them.
If polybar was compiled with RandR monitor support, only monitors are listed and not physical outputs.


Print list of all available monitors and exit.
This includes cloned monitors as well as both physical outputs and RandR monitors (if supported).
Only the names listed here can be used as monitor names in polybar.


Print the generated WM_NAME and exit

Output the data to stdout instead of drawing it to the X window

Save png snapshot to FILE after running for 3 seconds

Polybar was created by Michael Carlberg and is currently maintained by Patrick Ziegler.
Contributors can be listed on GitHub.

Report issues on GitHub <https://github.com/polybar/polybar>

polybar-msg(1), polybar(5)

Full documentation at: <https://github.com/polybar/polybar>
Project wiki: <https://github.com/polybar/polybar/wiki>

2016-2024, Michael Carlberg & contributors

April 1, 2024 3.7.1