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"
103 format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z"
104 timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
112 format = "T: %degrees °C"
113 path = "/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input"
118 threshold_degraded = "10%"
119 format_degraded = "MEMORY: %free"
125 -------------------------------------------------------------
129 The +colors+ directive will disable all colors if you set it to +false+. You can
130 also specify the colors that will be used to display "good", "degraded" or "bad"
131 values using the +color_good+, +color_degraded+ or +color_bad+ directives,
132 respectively. Those directives are only used if color support is not disabled by
133 the +colors+ directive. The input format for color values is the canonical RGB
134 hexadecimal triplet (with no separators between the colors), prefixed by a hash
137 *Example configuration*:
138 -------------------------------------------------------------
139 color_good = "#00FF00"
140 -------------------------------------------------------------
142 Likewise, you can use the +color_separator+ directive to specify the color that
143 will be used to paint the separator bar. The separator is always output in
144 color, even when colors are disabled by the +colors+ directive. This option has
145 no effect when +output_format+ is set to +i3bar+ or +none+.
147 The +interval+ directive specifies the time in seconds for which i3status will
148 sleep before printing the next status line.
150 Using +output_format+ you can choose which format strings i3status should
151 use in its output. Currently available are:
154 i3bar comes with i3 and provides a workspace bar which does the right thing in
155 multi-monitor situations. It also comes with tray support and can display the
156 i3status output. This output type uses JSON to pass as much meta-information to
157 i3bar as possible (like colors, which blocks can be shortened in which way,
160 Dzen is a general purpose messaging, notification and menuing program for X11.
161 It was designed to be scriptable in any language and integrate well with window
162 managers like dwm, wmii and xmonad though it will work with any window manager
164 xmobar is a minimalistic, text based, status bar. It was designed to work
165 with the xmonad Window Manager.
167 lemonbar is a lightweight bar based entirely on XCB. It has full UTF-8 support
168 and is EWMH compliant.
170 Use ANSI Escape sequences to produce a terminal-output as close as possible to
171 the graphical outputs. This makes debugging your config file a little bit
172 easier because the terminal-output of i3status becomes much more readable, but
173 should only used for such quick glances, because it will only support very
174 basic output-features (for example you only get 3 bits of color depth).
176 Does not use any color codes. Separates values by the pipe symbol by default.
177 This should be used with i3bar and can be used for custom scripts.
179 It's also possible to use the color_good, color_degraded, color_bad directives
180 to define specific colors per module. If one of these directives is defined
181 in a module section its value will override the value defined in the general
182 section just for this module.
184 If you don't fancy the vertical separators between modules i3status/i3bar
185 uses by default, you can employ the +separator+ directive to configure how
186 modules are separated. You can also disable the default separator altogether by
187 setting it to the empty string. You might then define separation as part of a
188 module's format string. This is your only option when using the i3bar output
189 format as the separator is drawn by i3bar directly otherwise. For the other
190 output formats, the provided non-empty string will be automatically enclosed
191 with the necessary coloring bits if color support is enabled.
193 i3bar supports Pango markup, allowing your format strings to specify font,
194 color, size, etc. by setting the +markup+ directive to "pango". Note that the
195 ampersand ("&"), less-than ("<"), greater-than (">"), single-quote ("'"), and
196 double-quote (""") characters need to be replaced with "`&`", "`<`",
197 "`>`", "`'`", and "`"`" respectively. This is done automatically
198 for generated content (e.g. wireless ESSID, time).
200 *Example configuration*:
202 -------------------------------------------------------------
204 output_format = "xmobar"
212 format = "[ load: %1min, %5min, %15min ]"
217 -------------------------------------------------------------
221 This module gets the IPv6 address used for outgoing connections (that is, the
222 best available public IPv6 address on your computer).
224 *Example format_up*: +%ip+
226 *Example format_down*: +no IPv6+
230 Gets used, free, available and total amount of bytes on the given mounted filesystem.
232 These values can also be expressed in percentages with the percentage_used,
233 percentage_free, percentage_avail and percentage_used_of_avail formats.
235 Byte sizes are presented in a human readable format using a set of prefixes
236 whose type can be specified via the "prefix_type" option. Three sets of
237 prefixes are available:
240 IEC prefixes (Ki, Mi, Gi, Ti) represent multiples of powers of 1024.
243 SI prefixes (k, M, G, T) represent multiples of powers of 1000.
245 The custom prefixes (K, M, G, T) represent multiples of powers of 1024.
247 It is possible to define a low_threshold that causes the disk text to be
248 displayed using color_bad. The low_threshold type can be of threshold_type
249 "bytes_free", "bytes_avail", "percentage_free", or "percentage_avail", where
250 the former two can be prepended by a generic prefix (k, m, g, t) having
251 prefix_type. So, if you configure low_threshold to 2, threshold_type to
252 "gbytes_avail", and prefix_type to "binary", and the remaining available disk
253 space is below 2 GiB, it will be colored bad. If not specified, threshold_type
254 is assumed to be "percentage_avail" and low_threshold to be set to 0, which
255 implies no coloring at all. You can customize the output format when below
256 low_threshold with format_below_threshold.
258 You can define a different format with the option "format_not_mounted"
259 which is used if the path does not exist or is not a mount point. Defaults to "".
261 *Example order*: +disk /mnt/usbstick+
263 *Example format*: +%free (%avail)/ %total+
265 *Example format*: +%percentage_used used, %percentage_free free, %percentage_avail avail+
267 *Example prefix_type*: +custom+
269 *Example low_threshold*: +5+
271 *Example format_below_threshold*: +Warning: %percentage_avail+
273 *Example threshold_type*: +percentage_free+
277 Expands the given path to a pidfile and checks if the process ID found inside
278 is valid (that is, if the process is running). You can use this to check if
279 a specific application, such as a VPN client or your DHCP client is running.
280 There also is an option "format_down". You can hide the output with
283 *Example order*: +run_watch DHCP+
285 *Example format*: +%title: %status+
289 Checks if the given path exists in the filesystem. You can use this to check if
290 something is active, like for example a VPN tunnel managed by NetworkManager.
291 There also is an option "format_down". You can hide the output with
294 *Example order*: +path_exists VPN+
296 *Example format*: +%title: %status+
300 Gets the link quality, frequency and ESSID of the given wireless network
301 interface. You can specify different format strings for the network being
302 connected or not connected.
304 The special interface name `_first_` will be replaced by the first wireless
305 network interface found on the system (excluding devices starting with "lo").
307 *Example order*: +wireless wlan0+
309 *Example format_up*: +W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate / %frequency) %ip+
311 *Example format_down*: +W: down+
315 Gets the IP address and (if possible) the link speed of the given ethernet
316 interface. If no IPv4 address is available and an IPv6 address is, it will be
319 The special interface name `_first_` will be replaced by the first non-wireless
320 network interface found on the system (excluding devices starting with "lo").
322 *Example order*: +ethernet eth0+
324 *Example format_up*: +E: %ip (%speed)+
326 *Example format_down*: +E: down+
330 Gets the status (charging, discharging, unknown, full), percentage, remaining
331 time and power consumption (in Watts) of the given battery and when it's
332 estimated to be empty. If you want to use the last full capacity instead of the
333 design capacity (when using the design capacity, it may happen that your
334 battery is at 23% when fully charged because it’s old. In general, I want to
335 see it this way, because it tells me how worn off my battery is.), just specify
336 +last_full_capacity = true+. You can hide seconds in the remaining time and
337 empty time estimations by setting +hide_seconds = true+.
339 If you want the battery percentage to be shown without decimals, add
340 +integer_battery_capacity = true+.
342 If your battery is represented in a non-standard path in /sys, be sure to
343 modify the "path" property accordingly, i.e. pointing to the uevent file on
344 your system. The first occurrence of %d gets replaced with the battery number,
345 but you can just hard-code a path as well.
347 It is possible to define a low_threshold that causes the battery text to be
348 colored red. The low_threshold type can be of threshold_type "time" or
349 "percentage". So, if you configure low_threshold to 10 and threshold_type to
350 "time", and your battery lasts another 9 minutes, it will be colored red.
352 To show an aggregate of all batteries in the system, use "all" as the number. In
353 this case (for Linux), the /sys path must contain the "%d" sequence. Otherwise,
354 the number indicates the battery index as reported in /sys.
356 Optionally custom strings including any UTF-8 symbols can be used for different
357 battery states. This makes it possible to display individual symbols
358 for each state (charging, discharging, unknown, full)
359 Of course it will also work with special iconic fonts, such as FontAwesome.
360 If any of these special status strings are omitted, the default (CHR, BAT, UNK,
363 *Example order (for the first battery)*: +battery 0+
365 *Example order (aggregate of all batteries)*: +battery all+
367 *Example format*: +%status %remaining (%emptytime %consumption)+
369 *Example format_down*: +No battery+
371 *Example status_chr*: +⚡ CHR+
373 *Example status_bat*: +🔋 BAT+
375 *Example status_unk*: +? UNK+
377 *Example status_full*: +☻ FULL+
379 *Example low_threshold*: +30+
381 *Example threshold_type*: +time+
383 *Example path (%d replaced by title number)*: +/sys/class/power_supply/CMB%d/uevent+
385 *Example path (ignoring the number)*: +/sys/class/power_supply/CMB1/uevent+
389 Gets the temperature of the given thermal zone. It is possible to
390 define a max_threshold that will color the temperature red in case the
391 specified thermal zone is getting too hot. Defaults to 75 degrees C. The
392 output format when above max_threshold can be customized with
393 format_above_threshold.
395 *Example order*: +cpu_temperature 0+
397 *Example format*: +T: %degrees °C+
399 *Example max_threshold*: +42+
401 *Example format_above_threshold*: +Warning T above threshold: %degrees °C+
403 *Example path*: +/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input+
407 Gets the percentual CPU usage from +/proc/stat+ (Linux) or +sysctl(3)+
410 It is possible to define a max_threshold that will color the load
411 value red in case the CPU average over the last interval is getting
412 higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 95. The output
413 format when above max_threshold can be customized with
414 format_above_threshold.
416 It is possible to define a degraded_threshold that will color the load
417 value yellow in case the CPU average over the last interval is getting
418 higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 90. The output format
419 when above degraded threshold can be customized with
420 format_above_degraded_threshold.
422 For displaying the Nth CPU usage, you can use the %cpu<N> format string,
423 starting from %cpu0. This feature is currently not supported in FreeBSD.
425 *Example order*: +cpu_usage+
427 *Example format*: +all: %usage CPU_0: %cpu0 CPU_1: %cpu1+
429 *Example max_threshold*: +75+
431 *Example format_above_threshold*: +Warning above threshold: %usage+
433 *Example degraded_threshold*: +25+
435 *Example format_above_degraded_threshold*: +Warning above degraded threshold: %usage+
439 Gets the memory usage from system on a Linux system from +/proc/meminfo+. Other
440 systems are currently not supported.
442 As format placeholders, +total+, +used+, +free+, +available+ and +shared+ are
443 available. These will print human readable values. It's also possible to prefix
444 the placeholders with +percentage_+ to get a value in percent.
446 It's possible to define a +threshold_degraded+ and a +threshold_critical+ to
447 color the status bar output in yellow or red, if the available memory falls
448 below the given threshold. Possible values of the threshold can be any integer,
449 suffixed with an iec symbol (+T+, +G+, +M+, +K+). Alternatively, the integer
450 can be suffixed by a percent sign, which then rets evaluated relatively to
453 If the +format_degraded+ parameter is given and either the critical or the
454 degraded threshold applies, +format_degraded+ will get used as format string.
455 It acts equivalently to +format+.
457 As Linux' meminfo doesn't expose the overall memory in use, there are multiple
458 methods to distinguish the actually used memory.
460 *Example memory_used_method*: +memavailable+ ("total memory" - "MemAvailable", matches +free+ command)
462 *Example memory_used_method*: +classical+ ("total memory" - "free" - "buffers" - "cache", matches gnome system monitor)
464 *Example order*: +memory+
466 *Example format*: +%free %available (%used) / %total+
468 *Example format*: +%percentage_used used, %percentage_free free, %percentage_shared shared+
470 *Example threshold_degraded*: +10%+
472 *Example threshold_critical*: +5%+
474 *Example format_degraded*: +Memory LOW: %free+
478 Gets the system load (number of processes waiting for CPU time in the last
479 1, 5 and 15 minutes). It is possible to define a max_threshold that will
480 color the load value red in case the load average of the last minute is
481 getting higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 5. The output
482 format when above max_threshold can be customized with
483 format_above_threshold.
485 *Example order*: +load+
487 *Example format*: +%1min %5min %15min+
489 *Example max_threshold*: +"0,1"+
491 *Example format_above_threshold*: +Warning: %1min %5min %15min+
495 Outputs the current time in the local timezone.
496 To use a different timezone, you can set the TZ environment variable,
497 or use the +tztime+ module.
498 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
500 *Example order*: +time+
502 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S+
506 Outputs the current time in the given timezone.
507 If no timezone is given, local time will be used.
508 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
509 The system's timezone database is usually installed in +/usr/share/zoneinfo+.
510 Files below that path make for valid timezone strings, e.g. for
511 +/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin+ you can set timezone to +Europe/Berlin+
512 in the +tztime+ module.
513 To override the locale settings of your environment, set the +locale+ option.
515 *Example order*: +tztime berlin+
517 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z+
519 *Example timezone*: +Europe/Berlin+
521 *Example locale*: +de_DE.UTF-8+
523 If you would like to use markup in this section, there is a separate
524 +format_time+ option that is automatically escaped. Its output then replaces
525 %time in the format string.
527 *Example configuration (markup)*:
528 -------------------------------------------------------------
530 format = "<span foreground='#ffffff'>time:</span> %time"
531 format_time = "%H:%M %Z"
532 timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
534 -------------------------------------------------------------
538 Outputs the current discordian date in user-specified format. See +ddate(1)+ for
539 details on the format string.
540 *Note*: Neither *%.* nor *%X* are implemented yet.
542 *Example order*: +ddate+
544 *Example format*: +%{%a, %b %d%}, %Y%N - %H+
548 Outputs the volume of the specified mixer on the specified device. PulseAudio
549 and ALSA (Linux only) are supported. If PulseAudio is absent, a simplified
550 configuration can be used on FreeBSD and OpenBSD due to the lack of ALSA, the
551 +device+ and +mixer+ options can be ignored on these systems. On these systems
552 the OSS API is used instead to query +/dev/mixer+ directly if +mixer_idx+ is
553 -1, otherwise +/dev/mixer++mixer_idx+.
555 To get PulseAudio volume information, one must use the following format in the
564 where N is the index or name of the PulseAudio sink. You can obtain the name of
565 the sink with the following command:
567 $ pacmd list-sinks | grep name:
568 name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_14.2.analog-stereo>
570 The name is what's inside the angle brackets, not including them. If no sink is
571 specified the default sink is used. If the device string is missing or is set
572 to "default", PulseAudio will be tried if detected and will fallback to ALSA
573 (Linux) or OSS (FreeBSD/OpenBSD).
575 *Example order*: +volume master+
577 *Example format*: +♪: %volume+
579 *Example format_muted*: +♪: 0%%+
581 *Example configuration*:
582 -------------------------------------------------------------
584 format = "♪: %volume"
585 format_muted = "♪: muted (%volume)"
590 -------------------------------------------------------------
591 *Example configuration (PulseAudio)*:
592 -------------------------------------------------------------
594 format = "♪: %volume"
595 format_muted = "♪: muted (%volume)"
598 -------------------------------------------------------------
599 -------------------------------------------------------------
601 format = "♪: %volume"
602 format_muted = "♪: muted (%volume)"
603 device = "pulse:alsa_output.pci-0000_00_14.2.analog-stereo"
605 -------------------------------------------------------------
607 == Universal module options
609 When using the i3bar output format, there are a few additional options that
610 can be used with all modules to customize their appearance:
613 The alignment policy to use when the minimum width (see below) is not
614 reached. Either +center+ (default), +right+ or +left+.
616 The minimum width (in pixels) the module should occupy. If the module takes
617 less space than the specified size, the block will be padded to the left
618 and/or the right side, according to the defined alignment policy. This is
619 useful when you want to prevent the whole status line from shifting when
620 values take more or less space between each iteration.
621 The option can also be a string. In this case, the width of the given text
622 determines the minimum width of the block. This is useful when you want to
623 set a sensible minimum width regardless of which font you are using, and at
624 what particular size. Please note that a number enclosed with quotes will
625 still be treated as a number.
627 A boolean value which specifies whether a separator line should be drawn
628 after this block. The default is true, meaning the separator line will be
629 drawn. Note that if you disable the separator line, there will still be a
630 gap after the block, unless you also use separator_block_width.
631 separator_block_width::
632 The amount of pixels to leave blank after the block. In the middle of this
633 gap, a separator symbol will be drawn unless separator is disabled. This is
634 why the specified width should leave enough space for the separator symbol.
636 *Example configuration*:
637 -------------------------------------------------------------
643 separator_block_width = 1
645 -------------------------------------------------------------
647 == Using i3status with dzen2
649 After installing dzen2, you can directly use it with i3status. Just ensure that
650 +output_format+ is set to +dzen2+.
652 *Example for usage of i3status with dzen2*:
653 --------------------------------------------------------------
654 i3status | dzen2 -fg white -ta r -w 1280 \
655 -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso8859-1"
656 --------------------------------------------------------------
658 == Using i3status with xmobar
660 To get xmobar to start, you might need to copy the default configuration
661 file to +~/.xmobarrc+. Also, ensure that the +output_format+ option for i3status
664 *Example for usage of i3status with xmobar*:
665 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
666 i3status | xmobar -o -t "%StdinReader%" -c "[Run StdinReader]"
667 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
669 == What about memory usage or CPU frequency?
671 While talking about two specific things, please understand this section as a
672 general explanation why your favorite information is not included in i3status.
674 Let’s talk about memory usage specifically. It is hard to measure memory in a
675 way which is accurate or meaningful. An in-depth understanding of how paging
676 and virtual memory work in your operating system is required. Furthermore, even
677 if we had a well-defined way of displaying memory usage and you would
678 understand it, I think that it’s not helpful to repeatedly monitor your memory
679 usage. One reason for that is that I have not run out of memory in the last few
680 years. Memory has become so cheap that even in my 4 year old notebook, I have
681 8 GiB of RAM. Another reason is that your operating system will do the right
682 thing anyway: Either you have not enough RAM for your workload, but you need to
683 do it anyway, then your operating system will swap. Or you don’t have enough
684 RAM and you want to restrict your workload so that it fits, then the operating
685 system will kill the process using too much RAM and you can act accordingly.
687 For CPU frequency, the situation is similar. Many people don’t understand how
688 frequency scaling works precisely. The generally recommended CPU frequency
689 governor ("ondemand") changes the CPU frequency far more often than i3status
690 could display it. The display number is therefore often incorrect and doesn’t
691 tell you anything useful either.
693 In general, i3status wants to display things which you would look at
694 occasionally anyways, like the current date/time, whether you are connected to
695 a WiFi network or not, and if you have enough disk space to fit that 4.3 GiB
698 However, if you need to look at some kind of information more than once in a
699 while (like checking repeatedly how full your RAM is), you are probably better
700 off with a script doing that, which pops up an alert when your RAM usage reaches
701 a certain threshold. After all, the point of computers is not to burden you
702 with additional boring tasks like repeatedly checking a number.
704 == External scripts/programs with i3status
706 In i3status, we don’t want to implement process management again. Therefore,
707 there is no module to run arbitrary scripts or commands. Instead, you should
708 use your shell, for example like this:
710 *Example for prepending the i3status output*:
711 --------------------------------------------------------------
713 # shell script to prepend i3status with more stuff
718 echo "mystuff | $line" || exit 1
720 --------------------------------------------------------------
722 Put that in some script, say +.bin/my_i3status.sh+ and execute that instead of i3status.
724 Note that if you want to use the JSON output format (with colors in i3bar), you
725 need to use a slightly more complex wrapper script. There are examples in the
726 contrib/ folder, see https://github.com/i3/i3status/tree/master/contrib
730 When receiving +SIGUSR1+, i3status’s nanosleep() will be interrupted and thus
731 you will force an update. You can use killall -USR1 i3status to force an update
732 after changing the system volume, for example.
736 +strftime(3)+, +date(1)+, +glob(3)+, +dzen2(1)+, +xmobar(1)+
740 Michael Stapelberg and contributors
748 Fernando Tarlá Cardoso Lemos