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bemenu(1) General Commands Manual bemenu(1) NAME bemenu - dynamic menu inspired by dmenu(1) SYNOPSIS bemenu [-hCiKTvwx] [-I <index>] [-l <lines>] [-P <prefix>] [-p <prompt>] [--ifne] [--scrollbar none|always|autohide] [--binding vim] [--fork] [backend_options] bemenu-run [-hCiKTvwx] [-I <index>] [-l <lines>] [-P <prefix>] [-p <prompt>] [--ifne] [--scrollbar none|always|autohide] [--binding vim] [--fork] [--no-exec] [backend-options] DESCRIPTION bemenu is a dynamic menu for tty(4) (using ncurses(3)), X11 and Wayland, inspired by dmenu(1). It reads a list of newline-separated items from standard input and then presents them as a list, where the user can select one or more of them. When pressing <carriage-return>, the selected items are printed to standard output (one per line) and bemenu exits. Entering text will filter the items to those that match the input. If the number of items exceeds the size of the list, the items will be paginated. bemenu-run is a special-case invocation of bemenu, where the input is the list of executables under PATH and the selected items are executed. OPTIONS -h, --help Print a help message to standard output and exit. -C, --no-cursor Disable all cursor events. -I, --index <index> Highlight the item at index at the start. Indices start at 0. By de- fault, the first item is highlighted. -i, --ignorecase Filter items case-insensitively. -K, --no-keyboard Disable all keyboard events. -l, --list "<number> down|up" List items vertically down or up with the given number of lines. -P, --prefix <prefix> Display prefix before the highlighted item in a vertical list. -p, --prompt <prompt> Defines the prompt text to be displayed to the left of the input field. Defaults to abemenua. -s, --no-spacing Disable the title spacing on entries. -T, --no-touch Disable all touch events. -v, --version Print the bemenu version number to standard output and exit. -w, --wrap Advancing past the end of the list returns you to the start. -x, --password none|hide|indicator Specify how the filter text should be displayed: +-----------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | none | Display the input (the default). | +-----------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | hide | Do not display any input. | +-----------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | indicator | Replace input with asterisks. | +-----------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ --fixed-height Prevent the display from changing height on filter. --accept-single Immediately return if there is only one item. --auto-select When one entry is left, automatically select it. --binding Use alternative key bindings. Available options: vim --fork Always fork(2) before executing the selections. Disabled by default when using the terminal backend. --ifne Only display menu if there are items. --single-instance Force a single menu instance. --no-exec Print the selected items to standard output instead of executing them. --scrollbar none|always|autohide Specify when to show a scrollbar for vertical lists: +----------+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | none | Never display a scrollbar (the default). | +----------+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | always | Always display a scrollbar. | +----------+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | autohide | Only display a scrollbar when the number of items exceeds | | | the number of lines. | +----------+--------------------------------------------------------------+ -e, --vim-esc-exits Exit bemenu when pressing escape in normal mode for vim bindings. -N, --vim-normal-mode Start in normal mode for vim bindings. -F, --filter Filter items for a given string before showing the menu. Affects --ifne and --accept-single Backend options These options are only available on backends specified in the parentheses: -b, --bottom (Wayland, X11) The list will appear at the bottom of the screen. -c, --center (Wayland, X11) The list will appear at the center of the screen. (wx) -f, --grab (Wayland, X11) Show the bemenu window whilst reading the items. -B, --border (Wayland, X11) Specify the width of the border in pixels around the menu. --bdr (Wayland, X11) Specify the border color. -R, --border-radius (Wayland, X11) Specify the radius of the border around the menu (0 = no curved bor- ders). -H, --line-height <height> (Wayland, X11) Specify the height in point size to make each entry. --ch (Wayland, X11) Specify the height of the cursor (0 = scales with line height). --cw (Wayland, X11) Specify the width of the cursor. -m, --monitor <index> (Wayland, X11) Specify the monitor index where the list should appear. Monitor indices start at zero. The interpretation of the given argument depends on the utilized backend. With X11 and Wayland, a value of a-1a or focused in- dicates that the current monitor should be used (the default). With Wayland, the index should be a string specifying a specific monitor name. The value a-2a or all indicates that the list should appear on all monitors. -n, --no-overlap (Wayland) Set the bemenu window to be on top of any other panels. -M, --margin <margin> (Wayland, X11) Specify the margin (empty space) in pixels to leave between menu and vertical view borders. bemenu will reduce it's size to fit in space be- tween gaps. --hp (Wayland, X11) Specify the horizontal padding for the entries in single line mode. -W, --width-factor <factor> (Wayland, X11) Specify the relative width factor as a floating point number. It makes sense to set it between 0 and 1 to define how much of the screen width bemenu will use. However, bemenu will still respect margin, so if re- sulting size is greater than space between gaps, bemenu will ignore factor and use available space instead. --fn <name [size]> (Wayland, X11) Specify the font family name and size to be used. For more options, consult the Pango Reference Manual for pango_font_descrip- tion_from_string(). The following options control the colours for various parts of the list for the Wayland and X11 backends. Each takes an argument in the form of: #RGB[A] where R, G, B and A are hexadecimal integers from 00aFF that control the red, green, blue and alpha-transparency channels. --tb <color> Title background. --tf <color> Title foreground. --fb <color> Filter background. --ff <color> Filter foreground --cb <color> Cursor background. --cf <color> Cursor foreground --nb <color> Normal background. --nf <color> Normal foreground. --hb <color> Highlighted background. --hf <color> Highlighted foreground. --fbb <color> Feedback background. --fbf <color> Feedback foreground. --sb <color> Selected background. --sf <color> Selected foreground. --ab <color> Alternating background color. --af <color> Alternating foreground color. --scb <color> Scrollbar background. --scf <color> Scrollbar foreground. KEYBOARD COMMANDS bemenu supports keyboard commands to move around the list and edit the fil- ter. In the following examples, C-x means <control-x>, M-x means <alt-x> and S-x means <shift-x>: <cursor-up>, S-<cursor-left>, C-p, M-j, M-l Highlight the previous item. <cursor-down>, <tab>, C-n, M-h, M-k Highlight the next item. PageUp, M-v, M-u Show the previous page of items, preserving the offset of the currently highlighted item, if possible. PageDown, C-v, M-d Show the next page of items, preserving the offset of the currently highlighted item, if possible. S-M-<, S-PageUp Highlight the first item in the list. S-M->, S-PageDown Highlight the last item in the list. S-<tab> Copy the highlighted item to the filter. <escape>, C-g Terminate bemenu without printing items. C-<carriage-return>, C-m Print selected items and the currently highlighted one, and exit. Items are printed in the order they were selected, with the currently high- lighted item printed last. S-<carriage-return>, Insert Print the filter text to standard output and exit. C-b, C-l, <cursor-left> Move cursor left. C-f, <cursor-right> Move cursor right. C-a, Home Move cursor to the start. C-e, End Move cursor to the end. <backspace> C-h Remove character before the cursor. <delete> Remove character at the cursor. C-u, S-<delete> Remove all characters before the cursor. C-k Remove all characters after the cursor. C-w Clear the filter. C-y, C-Y Paste selection (C-y for "primary", C-Y for "clipboard"). M-[1-9] Print selected items and exit with a custom error code 10 (M-1) through 18 (M-9), see EXIT STATUS. M-0 Print selected items and exit with the custom error code 19, see EXIT STATUS. Vim bindings bemenu uses vim-like modal entry if invoked with --binding vim. These bind- ings roughly emulate insert and normal vim modes. The initial mode is in- sert mode, unless --vim-normal-mode is specified. In insert mode, all keys function as described above except for the follow- ing: <escape> Switch to normal mode. In normal mode, only the following keys have meaning: q Terminate bemenu without printing items. i Enter insert mode. I Enter insert mode after moving the cursor to the start. a Enter insert mode after moving the cursor right. A Enter insert mode after moving the cursor to the end. cc Enter insert mode after clearing the filter. cw Enter insert mode after removing all characters between the cursor and the start of the next word. cb Enter insert mode after removing all characters between the start of the word and the cursor. c$ Enter insert mode after removing all characters after the cursor. c0 Enter insert mode after removing all characters before the cursor. n, j Highlight the next item. p, k Highlight the previous item. gg Highlight the first item in the list. G Highlight the last item in the list. H Highlight the first visible item. M Highlight the middle-most visible item. L Highlight the last visible item. v Select or deselect the higlighted item. F Show the next page of items. B Show the previous page of items. h Move cursor left. l Move cursor right. 0 Move cursor to the start. $ Move cursor to the end. w Move cursor forward to the start of a word. b Move cursor backward to the start of a word. e Move cursor forward to the end of a word. x Remove character at the cursor. X Remove character before the cursor. dw Remove all characters between the cursor and start of the next word. db Remove all characters between the start of the word and the cursor. d$ Remove all characters after the cursor. d0 Remove all characters before the cursor. dd Clear the filter. ENVIRONMENT +------------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | BEMENU_OPTS | An alternative way to pass command line arguments to | | | bemenu. | +------------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | BEMENU_BACKEND | Force a backend to be used. If empty, one of the GUI | | | backends (Wayland, X11) will be selected automati- | | | cally. The accepted values are curses, wayland and | | | x11. | +------------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | BEMENU_RENDERER | Force a backend by loading its shared object from | | | the set value. | +------------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | BEMENU_RENDERERS | Override the backend search path to the set value. | | | Defaults to /usr/local/lib/bemenu. | +------------------+------------------------------------------------------+ | BEMENU_SCALE | Override the rendering scale factor for the GUI | | | backends. | +------------------+------------------------------------------------------+ EXIT STATUS 0 bemenu ran successfully. 1 The user exited without selecting, or bemenu encountered an error. 10-19 The user specified a custom exit code with M-[0-9], see KEYBOARD COM- MANDS. SEE ALSO dmenu(1), fork(2), ncurses(3), tty(4) Pango Reference Manual, https://developer.gnome.org/pango/1.46/, August 20, 2020, Fonts a pango_font_description_from_string(). AUTHORS bemenu is written and maintained by Jari Vetoniemi <mailroxas@gmail.com> with the help of various contributors. 2026-06-11 bemenu(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | KEYBOARD COMMANDS | ENVIRONMENT | EXIT STATUS | SEE ALSO | AUTHORS
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