3 Michael Stapelberg <michael@i3wm.org>
8 i3status - Generates a status line for i3bar, dzen2, xmobar or lemonbar
12 i3status [-c configfile] [-h] [-v]
17 Specifies an alternate configuration file path. By default, i3status looks for
18 configuration files in the following order:
20 1. ~/.config/i3status/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/i3status/config if set)
21 2. /etc/xdg/i3status/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/i3status/config if set)
27 i3status is a small program for generating a status bar for i3bar, dzen2,
28 xmobar, lemonbar or similar programs. It is designed to be very efficient by
29 issuing a very small number of system calls, as one generally wants to update
30 such a status line every second. This ensures that even under high load, your
31 status bar is updated correctly. Also, it saves a bit of energy by not hogging
32 your CPU as much as spawning the corresponding amount of shell commands would.
36 The basic idea of i3status is that you can specify which "modules" should
37 be used (the order directive). You can then configure each module with its
38 own section. For every module, you can specify the output format. See below
39 for a complete reference.
42 -------------------------------------------------------------
44 output_format = "dzen2"
51 order += "run_watch DHCP"
52 order += "run_watch VPNC"
53 order += "path_exists VPN"
54 order += "wireless wlan0"
55 order += "ethernet eth0"
57 order += "cpu_temperature 0"
60 order += "tztime local"
61 order += "tztime berlin"
64 format_up = "W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate) %ip"
65 format_down = "W: down"
69 format_up = "E: %ip (%speed)"
70 format_down = "E: down"
74 format = "%status %percentage %remaining %emptytime"
75 format_down = "No battery"
79 status_full = "☻ FULL"
80 path = "/sys/class/power_supply/BAT%d/uevent"
85 pidfile = "/var/run/dhclient*.pid"
89 # file containing the PID of a vpnc process
90 pidfile = "/var/run/vpnc/pid"
94 # path exists when a VPN tunnel launched by nmcli/nm-applet is active
95 path = "/proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/tun0"
99 format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
100 hide_if_equals_localtime = true
104 format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z"
105 timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
113 format = "T: %degrees °C"
114 path = "/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input"
119 threshold_degraded = "10%"
120 format_degraded = "MEMORY: %free"
128 path = "/proc/uptime"
131 -------------------------------------------------------------
135 The +colors+ directive will disable all colors if you set it to +false+. You can
136 also specify the colors that will be used to display "good", "degraded" or "bad"
137 values using the +color_good+, +color_degraded+ or +color_bad+ directives,
138 respectively. Those directives are only used if color support is not disabled by
139 the +colors+ directive. The input format for color values is the canonical RGB
140 hexadecimal triplet (with no separators between the colors), prefixed by a hash
143 *Example configuration*:
144 -------------------------------------------------------------
145 color_good = "#00FF00"
146 -------------------------------------------------------------
148 Likewise, you can use the +color_separator+ directive to specify the color that
149 will be used to paint the separator bar. The separator is always output in
150 color, even when colors are disabled by the +colors+ directive. This option has
151 no effect when +output_format+ is set to +i3bar+ or +none+.
153 The +interval+ directive specifies the time in seconds for which i3status will
154 sleep before printing the next status line.
156 Using +output_format+ you can choose which format strings i3status should
157 use in its output. Currently available are:
160 i3bar comes with i3 and provides a workspace bar which does the right thing in
161 multi-monitor situations. It also comes with tray support and can display the
162 i3status output. This output type uses JSON to pass as much meta-information to
163 i3bar as possible (like colors, which blocks can be shortened in which way,
166 Dzen is a general purpose messaging, notification and menuing program for X11.
167 It was designed to be scriptable in any language and integrate well with window
168 managers like dwm, wmii and xmonad though it will work with any window manager
170 xmobar is a minimalistic, text based, status bar. It was designed to work
171 with the xmonad Window Manager.
173 lemonbar is a lightweight bar based entirely on XCB. It has full UTF-8 support
174 and is EWMH compliant.
176 Use ANSI Escape sequences to produce a terminal-output as close as possible to
177 the graphical outputs. This makes debugging your config file a little bit
178 easier because the terminal-output of i3status becomes much more readable, but
179 should only used for such quick glances, because it will only support very
180 basic output-features (for example you only get 3 bits of color depth).
182 Does not use any color codes. Separates values by the pipe symbol by default.
183 This should be used with i3bar and can be used for custom scripts.
185 It's also possible to use the color_good, color_degraded, color_bad directives
186 to define specific colors per module. If one of these directives is defined
187 in a module section its value will override the value defined in the general
188 section just for this module.
190 If you don't fancy the vertical separators between modules i3status/i3bar
191 uses by default, you can employ the +separator+ directive to configure how
192 modules are separated. You can also disable the default separator altogether by
193 setting it to the empty string. You might then define separation as part of a
194 module's format string. This is your only option when using the i3bar output
195 format as the separator is drawn by i3bar directly otherwise. For the other
196 output formats, the provided non-empty string will be automatically enclosed
197 with the necessary coloring bits if color support is enabled.
199 i3bar supports Pango markup, allowing your format strings to specify font,
200 color, size, etc. by setting the +markup+ directive to "pango". Note that the
201 ampersand ("&"), less-than ("<"), greater-than (">"), single-quote ("'"), and
202 double-quote (""") characters need to be replaced with "`&`", "`<`",
203 "`>`", "`'`", and "`"`" respectively. This is done automatically
204 for generated content (e.g. wireless ESSID, time).
206 *Example configuration*:
208 -------------------------------------------------------------
210 output_format = "xmobar"
218 format = "[ load: %1min, %5min, %15min ]"
223 -------------------------------------------------------------
227 This module gets the IPv6 address used for outgoing connections (that is, the
228 best available public IPv6 address on your computer).
230 *Example format_up*: +%ip+
232 *Example format_down*: +no IPv6+
236 Gets used, free, available and total amount of bytes on the given mounted filesystem.
238 These values can also be expressed in percentages with the percentage_used,
239 percentage_free, percentage_avail and percentage_used_of_avail formats.
241 Byte sizes are presented in a human readable format using a set of prefixes
242 whose type can be specified via the "prefix_type" option. Three sets of
243 prefixes are available:
246 IEC prefixes (Ki, Mi, Gi, Ti) represent multiples of powers of 1024.
249 SI prefixes (k, M, G, T) represent multiples of powers of 1000.
251 The custom prefixes (K, M, G, T) represent multiples of powers of 1024.
253 It is possible to define a low_threshold that causes the disk text to be
254 displayed using color_bad. The low_threshold type can be of threshold_type
255 "bytes_free", "bytes_avail", "percentage_free", or "percentage_avail", where
256 the former two can be prepended by a generic prefix (k, m, g, t) having
257 prefix_type. So, if you configure low_threshold to 2, threshold_type to
258 "gbytes_avail", and prefix_type to "binary", and the remaining available disk
259 space is below 2 GiB, it will be colored bad. If not specified, threshold_type
260 is assumed to be "percentage_avail" and low_threshold to be set to 0, which
261 implies no coloring at all. You can customize the output format when below
262 low_threshold with format_below_threshold.
264 You can define a different format with the option "format_not_mounted"
265 which is used if the path does not exist or is not a mount point. Defaults to "".
267 *Example order*: +disk /mnt/usbstick+
269 *Example format*: +%free (%avail)/ %total+
271 *Example format*: +%percentage_used used, %percentage_free free, %percentage_avail avail+
273 *Example prefix_type*: +custom+
275 *Example low_threshold*: +5+
277 *Example format_below_threshold*: +Warning: %percentage_avail+
279 *Example threshold_type*: +percentage_free+
283 Expands the given path to a pidfile and checks if the process ID found inside
284 is valid (that is, if the process is running). You can use this to check if
285 a specific application, such as a VPN client or your DHCP client is running.
286 There also is an option "format_down". You can hide the output with
289 *Example order*: +run_watch DHCP+
291 *Example format*: +%title: %status+
295 Checks if the given path exists in the filesystem. You can use this to check if
296 something is active, like for example a VPN tunnel managed by NetworkManager.
297 There also is an option "format_down". You can hide the output with
300 *Example order*: +path_exists VPN+
302 *Example format*: +%title: %status+
306 Gets the link quality, frequency and ESSID of the given wireless network
307 interface. You can specify different format strings for the network being
308 connected or not connected. The quality is padded with leading zeroes by
309 default; to pad with something else use +format_quality+.
311 The special interface name `_first_` will be replaced by the first wireless
312 network interface found on the system (excluding devices starting with "lo").
314 *Example order*: +wireless wlan0+
316 *Example format_up*: +W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate / %frequency) %ip+
318 *Example format_down*: +W: down+
320 *Example format_quality*: +"%03d%s"+
324 Gets the IP address and (if possible) the link speed of the given ethernet
325 interface. If no IPv4 address is available and an IPv6 address is, it will be
328 The special interface name `_first_` will be replaced by the first non-wireless
329 network interface found on the system (excluding devices starting with "lo").
331 *Example order*: +ethernet eth0+
333 *Example format_up*: +E: %ip (%speed)+
335 *Example format_down*: +E: down+
339 Gets the status (charging, discharging, unknown, full), percentage, remaining
340 time and power consumption (in Watts) of the given battery and when it's
341 estimated to be empty. If you want to use the last full capacity instead of the
342 design capacity (when using the design capacity, it may happen that your
343 battery is at 23% when fully charged because it’s old. In general, I want to
344 see it this way, because it tells me how worn off my battery is.), just specify
345 +last_full_capacity = true+. You can show seconds in the remaining time and
346 empty time estimations by setting +hide_seconds = false+.
348 If you want the battery percentage to be shown without decimals, add
349 +integer_battery_capacity = true+.
351 If your battery is represented in a non-standard path in /sys, be sure to
352 modify the "path" property accordingly, i.e. pointing to the uevent file on
353 your system. The first occurrence of %d gets replaced with the battery number,
354 but you can just hard-code a path as well.
356 It is possible to define a low_threshold that causes the battery text to be
357 colored red. The low_threshold type can be of threshold_type "time" or
358 "percentage". So, if you configure low_threshold to 10 and threshold_type to
359 "time", and your battery lasts another 9 minutes, it will be colored red.
361 To show an aggregate of all batteries in the system, use "all" as the number. In
362 this case (for Linux), the /sys path must contain the "%d" sequence. Otherwise,
363 the number indicates the battery index as reported in /sys.
365 Optionally custom strings including any UTF-8 symbols can be used for different
366 battery states. This makes it possible to display individual symbols
367 for each state (charging, discharging, unknown, full)
368 Of course it will also work with special iconic fonts, such as FontAwesome.
369 If any of these special status strings are omitted, the default (CHR, BAT, UNK,
372 *Example order (for the first battery)*: +battery 0+
374 *Example order (aggregate of all batteries)*: +battery all+
376 *Example format*: +%status %remaining (%emptytime %consumption)+
378 *Example format_down*: +No battery+
380 *Example status_chr*: +⚡ CHR+
382 *Example status_bat*: +🔋 BAT+
384 *Example status_unk*: +? UNK+
386 *Example status_full*: +☻ FULL+
388 *Example low_threshold*: +30+
390 *Example threshold_type*: +time+
392 *Example path (%d replaced by title number)*: +/sys/class/power_supply/CMB%d/uevent+
394 *Example path (ignoring the number)*: +/sys/class/power_supply/CMB1/uevent+
398 Gets the temperature of the given thermal zone. It is possible to
399 define a max_threshold that will color the temperature red in case the
400 specified thermal zone is getting too hot. Defaults to 75 degrees C. The
401 output format when above max_threshold can be customized with
402 format_above_threshold.
404 *Example order*: +cpu_temperature 0+
406 *Example format*: +T: %degrees °C+
408 *Example max_threshold*: +42+
410 *Example format_above_threshold*: +Warning T above threshold: %degrees °C+
412 *Example path*: +/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input+
416 Gets the percentual CPU usage from +/proc/stat+ (Linux) or +sysctl(3)+
419 It is possible to define a max_threshold that will color the load
420 value red in case the CPU average over the last interval is getting
421 higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 95. The output
422 format when above max_threshold can be customized with
423 format_above_threshold.
425 It is possible to define a degraded_threshold that will color the load
426 value yellow in case the CPU average over the last interval is getting
427 higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 90. The output format
428 when above degraded threshold can be customized with
429 format_above_degraded_threshold.
431 For displaying the Nth CPU usage, you can use the %cpu<N> format string,
432 starting from %cpu0. This feature is currently not supported in FreeBSD.
434 *Example order*: +cpu_usage+
436 *Example format*: +all: %usage CPU_0: %cpu0 CPU_1: %cpu1+
438 *Example max_threshold*: +75+
440 *Example format_above_threshold*: +Warning above threshold: %usage+
442 *Example degraded_threshold*: +25+
444 *Example format_above_degraded_threshold*: +Warning above degraded threshold: %usage+
448 Gets the memory usage from system on a Linux system from +/proc/meminfo+. Other
449 systems are currently not supported.
451 As format placeholders, +total+, +used+, +free+, +available+ and +shared+ are
452 available. These will print human readable values. It's also possible to prefix
453 the placeholders with +percentage_+ to get a value in percent.
455 It's possible to define a +threshold_degraded+ and a +threshold_critical+ to
456 color the status bar output in yellow or red, if the available memory falls
457 below the given threshold. Possible values of the threshold can be any integer,
458 suffixed with an iec symbol (+T+, +G+, +M+, +K+). Alternatively, the integer
459 can be suffixed by a percent sign, which then rets evaluated relatively to
462 If the +format_degraded+ parameter is given and either the critical or the
463 degraded threshold applies, +format_degraded+ will get used as format string.
464 It acts equivalently to +format+.
466 As Linux' meminfo doesn't expose the overall memory in use, there are multiple
467 methods to distinguish the actually used memory.
469 *Example memory_used_method*: +memavailable+ ("total memory" - "MemAvailable", matches +free+ command)
471 *Example memory_used_method*: +classical+ ("total memory" - "free" - "buffers" - "cache", matches gnome system monitor)
473 *Example order*: +memory+
475 *Example format*: +%free %available (%used) / %total+
477 *Example format*: +%percentage_used used, %percentage_free free, %percentage_shared shared+
479 *Example threshold_degraded*: +10%+
481 *Example threshold_critical*: +5%+
483 *Example format_degraded*: +Memory LOW: %free+
487 Gets the system load (number of processes waiting for CPU time in the last
488 1, 5 and 15 minutes). It is possible to define a max_threshold that will
489 color the load value red in case the load average of the last minute is
490 getting higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 5. The output
491 format when above max_threshold can be customized with
492 format_above_threshold.
494 *Example order*: +load+
496 *Example format*: +%1min %5min %15min+
498 *Example max_threshold*: +"0.1"+
500 *Example format_above_threshold*: +Warning: %1min %5min %15min+
504 Outputs the current time in the local timezone.
505 To use a different timezone, you can set the TZ environment variable,
506 or use the +tztime+ module.
507 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
509 *Example order*: +time+
511 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S+
515 Outputs the current time in the given timezone.
516 If no timezone is given, local time will be used.
517 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
518 The system's timezone database is usually installed in +/usr/share/zoneinfo+.
519 Files below that path make for valid timezone strings, e.g. for
520 +/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin+ you can set timezone to +Europe/Berlin+
521 in the +tztime+ module.
522 To override the locale settings of your environment, set the +locale+ option.
523 To display time only when the set timezone has different time from localtime, set
524 +hide_if_equals_localtime+ to true.
526 *Example order*: +tztime berlin+
528 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z+
530 *Example timezone*: +Europe/Berlin+
532 *Example locale*: +de_DE.UTF-8+
534 If you would like to use markup in this section, there is a separate
535 +format_time+ option that is automatically escaped. Its output then replaces
536 %time in the format string.
538 *Example configuration (markup)*:
539 -------------------------------------------------------------
541 format = "<span foreground='#ffffff'>time:</span> %time"
542 format_time = "%H:%M %Z"
543 timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
544 hide_if_equals_localtime = true
546 -------------------------------------------------------------
550 Outputs the current discordian date in user-specified format. See +ddate(1)+ for
551 details on the format string.
552 *Note*: Neither *%.* nor *%X* are implemented yet.
554 *Example order*: +ddate+
556 *Example format*: +%{%a, %b %d%}, %Y%N - %H+
560 Outputs the volume of the specified mixer on the specified device. PulseAudio
561 and ALSA (Linux only) are supported. If PulseAudio is absent, a simplified
562 configuration can be used on FreeBSD and OpenBSD due to the lack of ALSA, the
563 +device+ and +mixer+ options can be ignored on these systems. On these systems
564 the OSS API is used instead to query +/dev/mixer+ directly if +mixer_idx+ is
565 -1, otherwise +/dev/mixer++mixer_idx+.
567 To get PulseAudio volume information, one must use the following format in the
576 where N is the index or name of the PulseAudio sink. You can obtain the name of
577 the sink with the following command:
579 $ pacmd list-sinks | grep name:
580 name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_14.2.analog-stereo>
582 The name is what's inside the angle brackets, not including them. If no sink is
583 specified the default sink is used. If the device string is missing or is set
584 to "default", PulseAudio will be tried if detected and will fallback to ALSA
585 (Linux) or OSS (FreeBSD/OpenBSD).
587 *Example order*: +volume master+
589 *Example format*: +♪ (%devicename): %volume+
591 *Example format_muted*: +♪ (%devicename): 0%%+
593 *Example configuration*:
594 -------------------------------------------------------------
596 format = "♪: %volume"
597 format_muted = "♪: muted (%volume)"
602 -------------------------------------------------------------
603 *Example configuration (PulseAudio)*:
604 -------------------------------------------------------------
606 format = "♪: %volume"
607 format_muted = "♪: muted (%volume)"
610 -------------------------------------------------------------
611 -------------------------------------------------------------
613 format = "♪: %volume"
614 format_muted = "♪: muted (%volume)"
615 device = "pulse:alsa_output.pci-0000_00_14.2.analog-stereo"
617 -------------------------------------------------------------
621 Outputs the contents of the specified file. You can use this to check contents
622 of files on your system, for example /proc/uptime. By default the function only
623 reads the first 254 characters of the file, if you want to override this set
624 the Max_characters option. It will never read beyond the first 4095 characters.
625 If the file is not found "no file" will be printed, if the file can't be read
626 "error read" will be printed.
628 *Example order*: read_file UPTIME
630 *Example format*: "%title: %content"
632 *Example format_bad*: "%title - %errno: %error"
634 *Example path*: "/proc/uptime"
636 *Example Max_characters*: 255
638 == Universal module options
640 When using the i3bar output format, there are a few additional options that
641 can be used with all modules to customize their appearance:
644 The alignment policy to use when the minimum width (see below) is not
645 reached. Either +center+ (default), +right+ or +left+.
647 The minimum width (in pixels) the module should occupy. If the module takes
648 less space than the specified size, the block will be padded to the left
649 and/or the right side, according to the defined alignment policy. This is
650 useful when you want to prevent the whole status line from shifting when
651 values take more or less space between each iteration.
652 The option can also be a string. In this case, the width of the given text
653 determines the minimum width of the block. This is useful when you want to
654 set a sensible minimum width regardless of which font you are using, and at
655 what particular size. Please note that a number enclosed with quotes will
656 still be treated as a number.
658 A boolean value which specifies whether a separator line should be drawn
659 after this block. The default is true, meaning the separator line will be
660 drawn. Note that if you disable the separator line, there will still be a
661 gap after the block, unless you also use separator_block_width.
662 separator_block_width::
663 The amount of pixels to leave blank after the block. In the middle of this
664 gap, a separator symbol will be drawn unless separator is disabled. This is
665 why the specified width should leave enough space for the separator symbol.
667 *Example configuration*:
668 -------------------------------------------------------------
674 separator_block_width = 1
676 -------------------------------------------------------------
678 == Using i3status with dzen2
680 After installing dzen2, you can directly use it with i3status. Just ensure that
681 +output_format+ is set to +dzen2+. *Note*: +min_width+ is not supported.
683 *Example for usage of i3status with dzen2*:
684 --------------------------------------------------------------
685 i3status | dzen2 -fg white -ta r -w 1280 \
686 -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso8859-1"
687 --------------------------------------------------------------
689 == Using i3status with xmobar
691 To get xmobar to start, you might need to copy the default configuration
692 file to +~/.xmobarrc+. Also, ensure that the +output_format+ option for i3status
693 is set to +xmobar+. *Note*: +min_width+ is not supported.
695 *Example for usage of i3status with xmobar*:
696 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
697 i3status | xmobar -o -t "%StdinReader%" -c "[Run StdinReader]"
698 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
700 == What about CPU frequency?
702 While talking about specific things, please understand this section as a
703 general explanation why your favorite information is not included in i3status.
705 Let’s talk about CPU frequency specifically. Many people don’t understand how
706 frequency scaling works precisely. The generally recommended CPU frequency
707 governor ("ondemand") changes the CPU frequency far more often than i3status
708 could display it. The display number is therefore often incorrect and doesn’t
709 tell you anything useful either.
711 In general, i3status wants to display things which you would look at
712 occasionally anyways, like the current date/time, whether you are connected to
713 a WiFi network or not, and if you have enough disk space to fit that 4.3 GiB
716 However, if you need to look at some kind of information more than once in a
717 while, you are probably better off with a script doing that, which pops up.
718 After all, the point of computers is not to burden you with additional boring
719 tasks like repeatedly checking a number.
721 == External scripts/programs with i3status
723 In i3status, we don’t want to implement process management again. Therefore,
724 there is no module to run arbitrary scripts or commands. Instead, you should
725 use your shell, for example like this:
727 *Example for prepending the i3status output*:
728 --------------------------------------------------------------
730 # shell script to prepend i3status with more stuff
735 echo "mystuff | $line" || exit 1
737 --------------------------------------------------------------
739 Put that in some script, say +.bin/my_i3status.sh+ and execute that instead of i3status.
741 Note that if you want to use the JSON output format (with colors in i3bar), you
742 need to use a slightly more complex wrapper script. There are examples in the
743 contrib/ folder, see https://github.com/i3/i3status/tree/master/contrib
747 When receiving +SIGUSR1+, i3status’s nanosleep() will be interrupted and thus
748 you will force an update. You can use killall -USR1 i3status to force an update
749 after changing the system volume, for example.
753 +strftime(3)+, +date(1)+, +glob(3)+, +dzen2(1)+, +xmobar(1)+
757 Michael Stapelberg and contributors
765 Fernando Tarlá Cardoso Lemos