Script window placement and workspace switching from the command line with wmctrl
domain: mankier.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
List all windows with their IDs, desktop number, and title using wmctrl -l
List available desktops/workspaces with wmctrl -d
Switch the active workspace with wmctrl -s <desktop-number> (0-indexed)
Move a window to a workspace and follow it with wmctrl -r "Window Title" -t <desktop-number>
Resize/move a window in place with wmctrl -r "Window Title" -e 0,<x>,<y>,<w>,<h>
Known gotchas
-r matches window titles as a case-insensitive substring by default, so scripts targeting generically-titled apps can hit the wrong window; add -x to match by WM_CLASS instead for stable targeting
wmctrl only works with EWMH/NetWM-compliant window managers — some minimal tiling WMs don't fully implement the spec, so -d/-s desktop operations can silently no-op
Like xdotool, wmctrl talks to X11 and has no Wayland support, so it no-ops or errors under GNOME's or KDE's native Wayland sessions
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