Is there a way to show notification from bash script in Ubuntu?

Question

Most of the application can show nicely formatted notification on events that appear on top right corner of the screen. I'm about to write a bash script that will do fairy long processing in the background and I really want to know when it is finished. How can I show that nice notification from a bash script?

Solution 1

Found another way, through Zenity

echo 'message:hi' | zenity --notification --listen

or like this:

zenity --notification --text "System update necessary!" 

(This also has the benefit of already being installed on Ubuntu.)

Solution 2

Tested on Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, 20.04. Screenshots from Ubuntu 20.04.

1. [WORKS WELL] Popup notification that auto-closes after 4~10 seconds (somehow tied to your OS settings?):

   notify-send "Hello world"
   

   
   Source: https://superuser.com/a/31919/425838

2. Popup window with buttons to click:

   1. Window does NOT get auto-focus: Source: myself; note: for older Unity-based versions of Ubuntu, such as 16.04, -t is ignored for all values except 0--how stupid. :(. For newer Gnome-based versions of Ubuntu, such as 18.04 or 20.04, -t is ignored entirely. Therefore, on older Unity-based versions of Ubuntu, such as 16.04, using -t 0 causes buttons to show up, but on newer Gnome-based versions, it does NOT. That means that for the Ubuntu 20.04 screenshot shown below, the behavior and look of notify-send -t 0 "Hello world" is exactly identical to notify-send "Hello world" above.

      notify-send -t 0 "Hello world"
      

      

      On Ubuntu 18.04 or 20.04 or later, just add -u critical to the command instead to get it to stay open indefinitely until you click anywhere on it!:

      notify-send -u critical "Hello world"
      

      
      Source: @lucidbrot's comment below this answer, plus my own testing.

   2. OR Window DOES get auto-focus:

      zenity --info --title "Hello" --text "World"
      

      Note: the window will NOT close until you click the OK button.
      
      Source: https://askubuntu.com/a/804475/327339

3. [MY FAVORITE] The window auto-closes after the specified --timeout in seconds, OR after you click the "OK" button!

   zenity --info --title "Hello" --text "World" --timeout=2
   

   Note: the window WILL automatically close after the specified timeout above, in seconds!
   
   Source: myself reading the man pages: man zenity

4. [super ugly-looking]

   xmessage 'hello world'
   

   Note: the window will NOT close until you click the okay button.
   
   Source: http://www.linux-commands-examples.com/xmessage

Play sounds too

1. If you want to play sounds too, along with the window popup, to signify the completion of a command or something, see my other answer here: AskUbuntu.com: How to make a sound once a process is complete?

Solution 3

For KDE users:

$ kdialog --title "Long process completed!" --passivepopup "This popup will disappear in 5 seconds" 5 &

Solution 4

There's also xmessage that will pop-up a window, so it should work on any X11 system.

Pro: It also allows interactively prompting the user with buttons.

Con: Like any pop-up alert, it typically receives focus, so if you're in the middle of typing it can disappear before you read the message.

Solution 5

There exists a cross-platform solution called Yfiton:

$ yfiton -n desktop -Pmessage="Lunch time!" -Pposition=TOP_RIGHT

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

How can I trigger a notification when a job/process ends?

[Admin]

Bonus question: Can you put the notification on certain output only? What if you use screen mirroring?

[Admin]

Thanks, just found it myself :) apt-get install libnotify-bin have to be run before to get it.

[CTarczon]

This is a little bit different as it doesn't use ubuntu desktop notifications.

[geek]

Yes, this is an alternative that you can use with any Linux distribution and any WM/DE.

[Malabarba]

Is it possible to set an icon for the notification?

[Nik Reiman]

Con: It looks ugly as hell, and also is a super tiny window which is not always obvious to the user. Anyways, it is universal though. :)

[Admin]

How does the root user send a message from crons, init.d, etc?

[Abhay Mittal]

xmessage doesn't work in Fedora though. Its not installed by default.

[Admin]

Eg: notify-send Test "Hello World"

[Admin]

The --expire-time parameter does not work on Ubuntu thanks to this "feature" (bug). bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/notify-osd/+bug/390508

[Admin]

I found that notify-send is inhibited during video/audio playback. While this is a valid use case, if you still want to see them then --urgency=critical must be added.

[Admin]

I'm using jessie (Linux raspberrypi 4.4.50-v7+), on raspberry, install notify 'libnotify-bin', but it don't bring any notification! -> notify-send Test "Hello World"

[Admin]

Thanks buddy. I used this to send me a notification every 10 minutes to blink eyes using cron as a reminder to follow 20-20 (10-10 rule in my case) rule. ;)

[Waffle's Crazy Peanut]

I like Zenity in that it supports user interactions for dialogs (unlike notify-send)

[friederbluemle]

It's not available in the default Xorg installation of Arch Linux either.

[Admin]

To make it pop up a window with an "OK" and "Cancel" button use notify-send --expire-time=0 "Hello World" or notify-send -t 0 "Hello world"

[Admin]

Note, however, that otherwise the --expire-time or -t option is worthless (ignored), unfortunately, and the default of 10 sec or so applies to all notifications regardless of what you want. Pretty stupid if you ask me! askubuntu.com/questions/110969/notify-send-ignores-timeout

[Gabriel Staples]

You can also get a popup window with an "OK" and "Cancel" button via notify-send --expire-time=0 "Hello World" or notify-send -t 0 "Hello world". Otherwise, however, the -t option is ignored due to some stupid "design decisions": askubuntu.com/questions/110969/notify-send-ignores-timeout

[Gabriel Staples]

I couldn't take it; I had to write my own answer :) superuser.com/a/1310142/425838

[Admin]

I couldn't take it; I had to write my own answer :) superuser.com/a/1310142/425838

[lucidbrot]

My notification with -t 0 disappears by itself unless the level is critical just like the others. I'm on Ubuntu 18.04. But the other options work great, and the [super ugly-looking] made me laugh

[WesternGun]

Doing it in .profile causes an error: The name org.freedesktop.Notifcations was not provided by any .service file. Otherwise it works well. Ubuntu 18.04

[Admin]

very detail. Thank you