How can I send a custom desktop notification?

Question

I have a custom script and I want to send a desktop notification (the one that appears in the top right corner of the screen) with a custom message. How do I do that?

is there a C library that we can bind to for this? It would be nice to not have to launch an extra child process if possible. — Alexander Mills, Mar 21 '20 at 20:54
anyone know offhand how to do something similar on MacOS/Macbook pro? — Alexander Mills, Mar 21 '20 at 20:54

score 204 · Accepted Answer · edited May 21 '18 at 18:33

204

There are a bunch of other cool features with notify-send

We can run a command and make it display in the notification:

notify-send <title> <`command`>
notify-send Date "`date`"
notify-send Disk "`df / -H`"

We can use icons with the notifications

notify-send -i <icon> <Message>
notify-send -i face-wink "Hello! January"

Really annoying pop up

notify-send  -t 0 "Bringing down the system"

and

notify-send <title> <message>
notify-send "who am i" "I am January"

For more options check here

edited May 21 '18 at 18:33

Nelu

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answered Sep 12 '12 at 16:45

devav2

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2

Thank you. Where can we get a list of icons, e.g. the `face-wink` that you used? – Paddy Landau Sep 24 '12 at 10:56
4

check out my answer [here](http://askubuntu.com/questions/189231/where-are-the-stock-icon-names-defined-for-the-unity-panel-service-indicators-an/189262#189262) – devav2 Sep 24 '12 at 13:07
`notify-send -t 0` works but `notify-send "who am i" "I am January"` does not work :( - on ubuntu 15.10 – AlikElzin-kilaka May 23 '16 at 09:19
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Worked with `--urgency=critical` – AlikElzin-kilaka May 23 '16 at 09:50
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Installation on debian `sudo apt install libnotify-bin`. – user149244 Feb 19 '19 at 06:28
is there a C library that we can bind to for this? It would be nice to not have to launch an extra child process if possible. – Alexander Mills Mar 21 '20 at 20:52
anyone know offhand how to do something similar on MacOS/Macbook pro? – Alexander Mills Mar 21 '20 at 20:54

CelticRaven · Answer 2 · 2012-09-19T08:43:59.767

20

Just to add to the other answers, when running the command locally from cron, I use

DISPLAY=:0.0 /usr/bin/notify-send "TITLE" "MESSAGE"

edited Sep 19 '12 at 08:43

answered Sep 19 '12 at 08:21

CelticRaven

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This may fail if you currently used display appears to be at `:1` or something else. I've noticed such things happen when e.g. Xorg crashes and gets restarted. – Ruslan Apr 29 '20 at 12:00
To determine which display is used run echo $DISPLAY in console... – Aleksandar Pavić Apr 21 '22 at 19:50

score 18 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 19 '13 at 00:05

18

I stumbled upon that one by chance. Answer: use the program notify-send:

notify-send "Hello world!"

edited Jun 19 '13 at 00:05

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

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answered Sep 12 '12 at 16:25

January

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Yahya · Answer 4 · 2018-07-10T18:59:41.840

I created a simple and almost-native script that plays Sound and displays a Notification with a Given Message and Time for Ubuntu (Gist):

#!/bin/sh

# https://gist.github.com/John-Almardeny/04fb95eeb969aa46f031457c7815b07d
# Create a Notification With Sound with a Given Message and Time
# The Downloaded Sound is from Notification Sounds https://notificationsounds.com/

MSSG="$1"
TIME="$2"

# install wget if not found
if ! [ -x "$(command -v wget)" ]; then 
    echo -e "INSTALLING WGET...\n\n"
    sudo apt-get install wget
    echo -e "\n\n"
fi

# install at package if not found
if ! [ -x "$(command -v at)" ]; then
    echo -e "INSTALLING AT...\n\n"
    sudo apt-get install at
    echo -e "\n\n"
fi

# install sox if not found
if ! [ -x "$(command -v sox)" ]; then
    echo -e "INSTALLING SOX...\n\n"
    sudo apt-get install sox
    sudo apt-get install sox libsox-fmt-all
    echo -e "\n\n"
fi

# download the noti sound if this is first time
# add alias to the bashrc file
if ! [ -f ~/noti/sound.mp3 ]; then
    echo -e "DOWNLOADING SOUND...\n\n"
    touch ~/noti/sound.mp3 | wget -O ~/noti/sound.mp3 "https://notificationsounds.com/wake-up-tones/rise-and-shine-342/download/mp3"
    sudo echo "alias noti=\"sh ~/noti/noti.sh\"" >> ~/.bashrc
    source ~/.bashrc        
    echo -e "\n\n"
fi

# notify with the sound playing and particular given message and time
echo "notify-send \""$MSSG\"" && play ~/noti/sound.mp3" | at $TIME

How To Use?

First Run - Setting Up:

Create a new Directory at your home and call it noti
```
mkdir ~/noti
```
Download noti.sh and extract it to the above noti dir.
Open Terminal and Change Directory to noti
```
cd ~/noti
```
Make noti.sh executable by issuing:
```
sudo chmod +x noti.sh
```
Run a Test like this:
```
sh ~/noti/noti.sh "Test" "now"
```

Examples

noti "Hello From Noti" "now +1 minute"
noti "Hello From Noti" "now +5 minutes"
noti "Hello From Noti" "now + 1 hour"
noti "Hello From Noti" "now + 2 days"
noti "Hello From Noti" "4 PM + 2 days"
noti "Hello From Noti" "now + 3 weeks"
noti "Hello From Noti" "now + 4 months"
noti "Hello From Noti" "4:00 PM"
noti "Hello From Noti" "2:30 AM tomorrow"
noti "Hello From Noti" "2:30 PM Fri"
noti "Hello From Noti" "2:30 PM 25.07.18"

For Notifying The Finish of Process (example)

sudo apt-get update; noti "Done" "now"

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 19 '20 at 08:25

4

There is also zenity - universal linux alternative to notify-send.

answered Feb 19 '20 at 08:25

ephemerr

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(Late, I know, but still valid) I disagree that this is an alternative, as `zenity` displays dialog boxes that don't go away by themselves. – noughtnaut Nov 16 '20 at 20:31
1

@Noughtnaut, if I remember correct, there is customizable timeout. – ephemerr Nov 17 '20 at 12:23
@Noughtnaut on the other hand notify-send's `-t` option is ignored by Ubuntu's Notify OSD and GNOME Shell. I could not make it work even in Xfce. (See the man page of it.) – jarno Mar 29 '22 at 10:28

How can I send a custom desktop notification?

5 Answers5

How To Use?

First Run - Setting Up:

Examples

For Notifying The Finish of Process (example)

Linked

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