Joseph Zikusooka ~ Zik

A software engineer specializing in open source technologies | Very experienced in building and configuring UNIX/Linux systems and servers. Passionate about developing software applications and hardware for the smart home | Currently serving as the CEO of Jambula Labs and the project leader at JambulaTV, a smart home automation and entertainment platform - https://jambulatv.com | This blog focuses on the following areas: Linux How-Tos and Tutorials ::: IT Security News ::: Free and Libre Open Source Software ::: Smart Home Software ::: Digital Innovations in East Africa https://mastodon.social/@jzik | https://github.com/zikusooka

Day: 11 September, 2011

PulseAudio – How to control the volume of individual applications via CLI

Using the Gnome interface, its pretty easy to adjust the volume of running audio based applications i.e. Go to sound Preferences >> Applications Tab. When using the Command Line interface (CLI) on the other hand, Its not that straight forward.

At the command prompt, run the following command:
pactl list | grep -A16 ‘Sink Input’ | more

The above command will give you details of your running streams or in ‘pulseaudio speak’ Sink Inputs (go figure). Take note of the Index number of the Sink Input you wish to control.

To control the volume of your application:
To mute: pactl set-sink-input-mute [sink Index no.] 1
To unmute: pactl set-sink-input-mute [sink Index no.] 0
To set Volume: pactl set-sink-input-volume [sink Index no.] 65535 (0-65535)

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