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swaymsg(1) General Commands Manual swaymsg(1) NAME swaymsg - Send messages to a running instance of sway over the IPC socket. SYNOPSIS swaymsg [options...] [message] OPTIONS -h, --help Show help message and quit. -m, --monitor Monitor for responses until killed instead of exiting after the first response. This can only be used with the IPC message type subscribe. If there is a malformed response or an invalid event type was requested, swaymsg will stop monitoring and exit. -p, --pretty Use pretty output even when not using a tty. Not available for all mes- sage types. -q, --quiet Sends the IPC message but does not print the response from sway. -r, --raw Use raw JSON output even if using a tty. -s, --socket <path> Use the specified socket path. Otherwise, swaymsg will ask sway where the socket is (which is the value of $SWAYSOCK, then of $I3SOCK). -t, --type <type> Specify the type of IPC message. See below. -v, --version Print the version (of swaymsg) and quit. IPC MESSAGE TYPES <command> The message is a sway command (the same commands you can bind to key- bindings in your sway config file). It will be executed immediately. See sway(5) for a list of commands. swaymsg can return pretty printed (standalone-default) or JSON-format- ted (--raw) output. For detailed documentation on the returned JSON- data of each message type listed below, refer to sway-ipc(7). The JSON-format can contain more information than the pretty print. Tips: * Command expansion is performed twice: once by swaymsg, and again by sway. If you have quoted multi-word strings in your command, en- close the entire command in single-quotes. For example, use swaymsg 'output "Foobar Display" enable' instead of swaymsg output "Foobar Display" enable. Furthermore, note that comma separated options also count as multi-word strings, because commas can be used to ex- ecute commands on the same line. * If you are providing a command that contains a leading hyphen (-), insert two hyphens (--) before the command to signal to swaymsg not to parse anything beyond that point as an option. For example, use swaymsg -- mark --add test instead of swaymsg mark --add test. get_workspaces Gets a list of workspaces and their status. get_inputs Gets a list of current inputs. get_outputs Gets a list of current outputs. get_tree Gets a JSON-encoded layout tree of all open windows, containers, out- puts, workspaces, and so on. get_seats Gets a list of all seats, its properties and all assigned devices. get_marks Get a JSON-encoded list of marks. get_bar_config Get a JSON-encoded configuration for swaybar. get_version Get version information for the running instance of sway. get_binding_modes Gets a JSON-encoded list of currently configured binding modes. get_binding_state Gets JSON-encoded info about the current binding state. get_config Gets a copy of the current configuration. Doesn't expand includes. send_tick Sends a tick event to all subscribed clients. subscribe Subscribe to a list of event types. The argument for this type should be provided in the form of a valid JSON array. If any of the types are invalid or if a valid JSON array is not provided, this will result in a failure. For a list of valid event types and the data returned with them refer to sway-ipc(7). RETURN CODES 0 Success 1 swaymsg errors such as invalid syntax, unable to connect to the ipc socket or unable to parse sway's reply 2 Sway returned an error when processing the command (ex. invalid com- mand, command failed, and invalid subscription request) SEE ALSO sway(5) sway-bar(5) sway-input(5) sway-output(5) sway-ipc(7) 2026-08-06 swaymsg(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | OPTIONS | IPC MESSAGE TYPES | RETURN CODES | SEE ALSO
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