Player

Player

Print the music player name that is currently active

Module type	player
Default order	47 (only used by --gen-config)
Module source	src/modules/player/player.c
Detection source	src/detection/media/ (shared with Media)

An alias of the Media module that prints only the player instead of the song. It reads the same shared FFMediaResult and prints a single line:

Media Player: Youtube (Google Chrome)

The value is a "pretty" name built from two fields: when the media has a URL, the site's name is derived from it and the player is appended in parentheses. Without a URL the line is just the player name, e.g. Spotify.

Platform support

Identical to Media: player has no detection source of its own and calls ffDetectMedia().

Platform	Implementation	Notes
Linux	media_linux.c	MPRIS over the session DBus
FreeBSD / OpenBSD / NetBSD / GNU/Hurd	media_linux.c	Same code; needs DBus
Windows	media_windows.cpp	WinRT GlobalSystemMediaTransportControlsSessionManager
macOS	media_apple.m	MediaRemote, or a Perl helper process on macOS 15.4+
Android	none	No detection source is referenced
Solaris / illumos	none	No detection source is referenced
Haiku	none	No detection source is referenced

On a platform without a backend the module reports the backend's error (for example winrt: GetCurrentSession() failed on Windows with no media app open), not a "not supported" message.

Configuration

Key	Type	Default	Description
key	string	Media Player	Module key. A single space hides the key and the separator
keyColor	color	–	Overrides display.color.keys
keyIcon	string	built-in glyph	Printed when display.key.type includes the icon bit. Any glyph works; "" prints none.
keyWidth	integer	–	Overrides display.key.width
outputColor	color	–	Overrides display.color.output
format	string	–	Custom output format (see below)
condition	object	–	Show the module only if the conditions match

There is no module-specific option — not even percent, which media has. Every key other than the generic ones produces Unknown JSON key ….

The player that is reported is not chosen here either: general.playerName (the --player-name flag) selects it, and the same setting drives media. It cannot be set from the module's own object.

Format string

Run fastfetch -h player-format for the authoritative list.

Variable	Description
{player}	Pretty player name — the value the default line prints
{name}	Player name, exactly as the backend reported it
{id}	Player identifier: the MPRIS bus name on Linux, the bundle id on macOS, the AppUserModelId on Windows
{url}	Media URL, when the backend provides one

None of the four is marked * in the help output, so none is available in the key format.

The difference between {player} and {name} is only the website prefix: {name} is the raw backend string (Google Chrome) while {player} is the composed one (Youtube (Google Chrome)). When there is no URL — or the URL does not start with http:// / https:// — the two are identical.

JSON output

[
    {
        "type": "Player",
        "error": "Player module is an alias of Media module"
    }
]

This is the only output the module ever produces in JSON, whether or not a player is detected: ffGeneratePlayerJsonResult() writes that error and returns false without calling the detection layer at all. There is no result object, and --show-errors changes nothing because the error is not routed through ffPrintError().

To get the player in machine-readable form, read the player object of the Media module instead — player.name, player.id and player.url correspond to {name}, {id} and {url}.

Examples

// The raw player name instead of the pretty one
{ "type": "player", "format": "{name}" }

// Site and identifier
{ "type": "player", "format": "{player} ({id})" }

// Follow one player (top-level setting, not a module option)
{ "general": { "playerName": "spotify" }, "modules": [ { "type": "player" } ] }

// Rename the line, since the default key is two words
{ "type": "player", "key": "Now playing in" }

Pitfalls

• The JSON output is always an error. {"type": "player"} in a --format json run yields Player module is an alias of Media module and nothing else. Use media if the value is needed by a script.
• The default key is Media Player, not Player. The module's type name (player) and its display name differ, so keyWidth and display.key.width align on the two-word name, and a config that filters on the key text has to match Media Player.
• The website prefix is skipped only for spotify and vlc, and the test is on the id, not the name. ffStrbufIgnCaseEqualS(&media->playerId, "spotify") compares the player identifier, which is the bare MPRIS bus name on Linux but a full AppUserModelId on Windows and a bundle id on macOS. The exemption therefore only really applies on Linux: a Windows Spotify reports an id like SpotifyAB.SpotifyMusic_…!Spotify, which is not equal to spotify.
• The site name is derived by crude string surgery. Everything up to and including https://, http://, https://www. or http://www. is dropped, then the rest is cut at the first / and at the last .. So https://music.youtube.com/watch?… becomes music.youtube — the subdomain is kept, and the first letter is only capitalised when no . remains at all. Other schemes (file://, spotify:track:…) leave {player} equal to {name}.
• A player that reports no name is an error, not an empty line. The module distinguishes two failures: the backend's own error (No media found, winrt: GetCurrentSession() failed, …) is printed first, and a successful detection whose player string is empty yields No media player detected.
• Errors are invisible by default. Both messages go through ffPrintError(), which obeys display.showErrors; with its default false the module simply prints nothing.
• {url} is Linux-only. It comes from the MPRIS xesam:url key, so on Windows and macOS it is always empty — and therefore {player} and {name} are always the same there.

Implementation

ffPrintPlayer() calls ffDetectMedia(false) — the same cached result the media module uses, so the two never probe the system twice in one run, and saveCover = false means no artwork is written.

The pretty name is built in the module, not in the detection layer:

1. If url is non-empty and the player id is neither spotify nor vlc (case-insensitively), the scheme and an optional leading www. are skipped by adding a fixed offset into the string (12, 11, 8 or 7 characters).
2. The remainder is cut before the first / (dropping the path) and before the last . (dropping the TLD).
3. If something is left over and it contains no ., the first byte is upper-cased with toupper.
4. The player name is appended, wrapped in ( … ) when step 2 left a site name.

Step 2 can empty the string — that happens when the host has nothing before its last dot, as in https://./ — and then the module falls back to the bare player name. A dotless host such as https://localhost/ survives both cuts and is simply capitalised to Localhost.