MPC(1) mpc MPC(1)
NAME
mpc - mpc Documentation
DESCRIPTION
mpc is a command-line client for the Music Player Daemon (MPD). It connects to a MPD and controls it according
to commands and arguments passed to it. If no command is given, the
current status is printed (same as "mpc status").
SYNOPSIS
mpc [options] [--] []
After --, all parameters are considered to be arguments, not options,
even if they start with a dash.
OPTIONS
-f, --format
Configure the format used to display songs.
The metadata delimiters are:
+---------------+----------------------------+
|Name | Description |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%name% | A name for this song. |
| | This is not the song |
| | title. The exact meaning |
| | of this tag is not |
| | well-defined. It is often |
| | used by badly configured |
| | internet radio stations |
| | with broken tags to |
| | squeeze both the artist |
| | name and the song title in |
| | one tag. |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%artist% | Artist file tag |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%album% | Album file tag |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%albumartist% | Album Artist file tag |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%comment% | Comment file tag (not |
| | enabled by default in |
| | mpd.conf's |
| | metadata_to_use) |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%composer% | Composer file tag |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%date% | Date file tag |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%originaldate% | Original Date file tag |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%disc% | Disc file tag |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%genre% | Genre file tag |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%performer% | Performer file tag |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%title% | Title file tag |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%track% | Track file tag |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%time% | Duration of file |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%file% | Path of file, relative to |
| | MPD's music_directory |
| | variable |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%position% | Queue track number |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%id% | Queue track id number |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%prio% | Priority in the (random) |
| | queue. |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%mtime% | Date and time of last file |
| | modification |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%mdate% | Date of last file |
| | modification |
+---------------+----------------------------+
|%audioformat% | The audio format of the |
| | song. |
+---------------+----------------------------+
The [] operator is used to group output such that if no metadata
delimiters are found or matched between [ and ], then none of
the characters between [ and ] are output. & and | are logical
operators for and and or. # is used to escape characters. Some
useful examples for format are: "%file%" and "[[%artist% -
]%title%]|[%file%]". This command also takes the following
defined escape sequences:
+---+-----------------+
|\ | backslash |
+---+-----------------+
|\[ | left bracket |
+---+-----------------+
|\] | right bracket |
+---+-----------------+
|\a | alert |
+---+-----------------+
|\b | backspace |
+---+-----------------+
|\e | escape |
+---+-----------------+
|\t | tab |
+---+-----------------+
|\n | newline |
+---+-----------------+
|\v | vertical tab |
+---+-----------------+
|\f | form-feed |
+---+-----------------+
|\r | carriage return |
+---+-----------------+
If not given, the value of the environment variable MPC_FORMAT
is used.
--wait Wait for operation to finish (e.g. database update).
--range=[START]:[END]
Operate on a range (e.g. when loading a playlist). START is the
first index of the range, END is the first index after the range
(i.e. excluding). START and END may be omitted, making the
range open to that end. Indexes start with zero.
--with-prio
Show only songs that have a non-zero priority.
-q, --quiet, --no-status
Prevents the current song status from being printed on
completion of some of the commands.
--verbose
Verbose output.
--host=HOST
The MPD server to connect to. This can be a hostname, IPv4/IPv6
address, an absolute path (i.e. local socket) or a name starting
with @ (i.e. an abstract socket, Linux only).
To use a password, provide a value of the form "password@host".
If not given, the value of the environment variable MPD_HOST is
used.
--port=PORT, -p PORT
The TCP port of the MPD server to connect to.
If not given, the value of the environment variable MPD_PORT is
used.
--partition=PARTITION, -a PARTITION
The partition of the MPD server to operate on.
If not given, the default partition is used.
COMMANDS
Commands can be used from the least unambiguous prefix (e.g insert or
ins).
Player Commands
consume - Toggle consume mode if state (on
or off) is not specified.
crossfade [] - Gets and sets the current amount of
crossfading between songs (0 disables crossfading).
current [--wait] - Show the currently playing song. With
--wait, mpc waits until the song changes (or until playback is
started/stopped) before it queries the current song from the
server.
queued - Show the currently queued (next) song.
mixrampdb [] - Gets and sets the volume level at which
songs with MixRamp tags will be overlapped. This disables the
fading of the crossfade command and simply mixes the songs.
-50.0 will effectively remove any gaps, 0.0 will mash tracks
together. The amount of overlap is limited by the
audio_buffer_size MPD configuration parameter.
mixrampdelay [] - Gets and sets the current amount
of extra delay added to the value computed from the MixRamp
tags. (A negative value disables overlapping with MixRamp tags
and restores the previous value of crossfade).
next - Starts playing next song on queue.
pause - Pauses playing.
play - Starts playing the song-number
specified. If none is specified, plays number 1.
prev - Starts playing previous song.
random - Toggle random mode if state (on
or off) is not specified.
repeat - Toggle repeat mode if state (on
or off) is not specified.
replaygain [] - Sets the replay gain mode.
Without arguments, it prints the replay gain mode.
single - Toggle single mode if state (on,
once, or off) is not specified. once toggles to off.
seek [+-][] or <[+-]<0-100>%> - Seeks by hour,
minute or seconds, hours or minutes can be omitted. If seeking
by percentage, seeks within the current song in the specified
manner. If a + or - is used, the seek is done relative to the
current song position. Absolute seeking by default.
seekthrough [+-][] - Seeks by hour,
minute or seconds, hours or minutes can be omitted, relatively
to the current position. If the duration exceeds the limit of
the current song, the seek command proceeds to seek through the
playlist until the duration is reached. If a + is used, the
seek is forward. If a - is used, the seek is backward. Forward
seeking by default.
stop - Stops playing.
toggle - Toggles between play and pause. If stopped starts
playing. Does not support start playing at song number (use
play).
Queue Commands
add - Adds a song from the music database to the
queue. Can also read input from pipes. Use "mpc add /" to add
all files to the queue.
insert - The insert command works similarly to
add except it adds song(s) after the currently playing one,
rather than at the end. When random mode is enabled, the new
song is queued after the current song.
clear - Empties the queue.
crop - Remove all songs except for the currently playing
song.
del - Removes a queue number from the queue. Can
also read input from pipes (0 deletes the current playing song).
mv, move - Moves song at position to the
position in the queue.
searchplay [ ]... - Search the
queue for a matching song and play it.
shuffle - Shuffles all songs on the queue.
Playlist Commands
load - Loads as queue. The option
--range may be used to load only a portion of the file
lsplaylists: - Lists available playlists.
playlist [] - Lists all songs in . If
no is specified, lists all songs in the current
queue.
rm - Deletes a specific playlist.
save - Saves playlist as .
addplaylist - Adds a song from the music database to
the playlist. The playlist will be created if it does not exist.
Can also read input from pipes.
delplaylist - Removes the song at given position
from the playlist. Can
also read input from pipes.
moveplaylist - Moves the song at given
position
to the position in the playlist.
renplaylist - Rename a playlist.
clearplaylist - Clear the playlist name (i.e. truncate
playlist.m3u).
Database Commands
listall [] - Lists from database. If no
file is specified, lists all songs in the database.
ls [] - Lists all files/folders in
directory. If no directory is specified, lists all files in
music directory.
lsdirs [] - List subdirectories of
directory. If no directory is specified, lists subdirectories in
music directory.
search [ ]... - Searches for
substrings in song tags. Any number of tag type and query
combinations can be specified. Possible tag types are: artist,
album, title, track, name, genre, date, composer, performer,
comment, disc, filename, or any (to match any tag).
search - Searches with a filter expression,
e.g.:
mpc search '((artist == "Kraftwerk") AND (title == "Metall auf
Metall"))'
Check the MPD protocol documentation for details. This syntax can
be used with find and findadd as well. (Requires libmpdclient
2.16 and MPD 0.21)
find [ ]... - Same as
search, but tag values must match query exactly instead of doing
a substring match.
findadd [ ]... - Same as
find, but add the result to the current queue instead of
printing them.
list [ ]... [group ]... - Return
a list of all tags of given tag type. Optional search
type/query limit results in a way similar to search. Results
can be grouped by one or more tags. Example:
mpc list album group artist
stats - Displays statistics about MPD.
update [--wait] [] - Scans for updated files in the
music directory. The optional parameter path (relative to the
music directory) may limit the scope of the update.
With --wait, mpc waits until MPD has finished the update.
rescan [--wait] [] - Like update, but also rescans
unmodified files.
File Commands
albumart - Download album art for the given song and
write it to stdout.
readpicture - Download a picture embedded in the
given song and write it to stdout.
Mount Commands
mount - Lists all mounts.
mount - Create a new mount:
mounts a storage on the given path. Example:
mpc mount server nfs://10.0.0.5/mp3
mpc mount stick udisks://by-id-ata-FOO-part2
unmount - Remove a mount.
listneighbors - Print a list of "neighors"
(i.e. automatically detected storages which can be mounted).
This requires enabling at least one neighbor plugin in mpd.conf. Example:
$ mpc listneighbors
upnp://uuid:01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-456789abcdef/urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:ContentDirectory:1
udisks://by-id-dm-name-_dev_sdb3
udisks://by-id-ata-FOO-part2
Sticker Commands
The sticker command allows you to get and set song stickers.
sticker set - Set the value of a song
sticker.
sticker get - Print the value of a song
sticker.
sticker list - List all stickers of a song.
sticker delete - Delete a song sticker.
sticker find - Search for stickers with the
specified name, below the specified directory.
Output Commands
volume [+-] - Sets the volume to (0-100). If
+ or - is used, then it adjusts the volume relative to the
current volume.
outputs - Lists all available outputs
disable [only]