Play a sound (maybe WAV?) from Windows line command

Question

How can i play a sound (CPU Beep or wav, don't matter what) using the Windows cmd?

Answer 1

Not in windows now, in order to test this possible solution, but try to: "start "

I think it will open the wav file with the associated program that your windows has for ".wav" files.

And note, this is a wild-guess - someone with windows may give you a better solution if this doesn't do the job

Answer 2

You can do this natively with PowerShell. PowerShell is included with Windows Vista and later, and can be downloaded from Microsoft for older versions.

---

Wave files

PowerShell can be used to load the System.Media.SoundPlayer .NET class, which can be used to play a wave file.

(New-Object Media.SoundPlayer "C:\WINDOWS\Media\notify.wav").Play();

If you want, you can run this from the normal command line:

powershell -c (New-Object Media.SoundPlayer "C:\Windows\Media\notify.wav").PlaySync();

(note that PlaySync is used in the second example since the standard asynchronous play would be interrupted by the PowerShell process closing when launched like this)

And if you wanted to play only the first, say, 5 seconds of the sound:

powershell -c (New-Object Media.SoundPlayer "C:\Windows\Media\notify.wav").Play(); Start-Sleep -s 5; Exit;

Beep

A beep can be easily accomplished in the normal command line with echo ^G (where ^G represents BEL, ASCII character 7, inserted with Ctrl + G), as described in other answers. In the interest of completeness, here's the PowerShell method:

echo ^G

Yes, it's the same as the cmd one. echo in PowerShell is an alias (i.e. means the same thing) to Write-Host, which displays something to the screen (or triggers the Windows notification sound in the case of BEL).

An alternative method in PowerShell is to use the escape sequence for BEL, rather than inserting a literal BEL character with Ctrl + G:

echo `a

` is PowerShell's escape character, which modifies the meaning of the character after it. An escaped a indicates BEL. The advantage of this approach is it is easier and more visible when typed into a script.

To run this in a batch file (again, Vista or later):

powershell -c echo `a

source

Answer 3

echo ^G

Where ^G is CTRL + G or Alt + 7 on the keypad.

Answer 4

Workaround (some sort of):

1) run audio file

2) wait till track ends (in my case its 5 seconds) and close media player

start wmplayer "C:\Windows\Media\Alarm10.wav" && timeout 5 && taskkill /im wmplayer.exe

Answer 5

Install VLC. Use the following command. It starts up REALLY fast. This is what I used on Windows 7 b/c wmplayer takes so long to load, and the /close option was removed from wmplayer.

vlc.exe --play-and-exit audio.wav

Answer 6

(While an old thread, people will find it on a search). I see someone has already recommended VLC. I use it to play a sound in Windows without anything visible using parameters: "c:\Program Files (x86)\videolan\vlc\vlc.exe" --qt-start-minimized --play-and-exit "c:\Program Files (x86)\videolan\vlc\Windows Exclamation.wav"

The main addition to the previous comment is --qt-start-minimized The paths and quote characters are just to illustrate a typical use. I've used this unchanged in XP, 7, 10; I expect Vista and 8.x to work too.

Answer 7

If a plain beep is alright, echo the character with the value 7, the so-called bell character. Note, however, that beeps can be turned off.

If you want something else, you'll have to launch an application that does the trick.

Answer 8

You could write a simple console application that took the sound file (or sound id) as an argument and called PlaySound

Answer 9

A very lightweight solution is cmndPlayWAV.jar which also works on Linux and OS/X. It has a built in sound if no parameter is specified or you can give the full path to a .wav file. Incidentally one could always make an audio message .wav to use with Windows Recorder.

Answer 10

You can use fmedia to play a sound file from Windows terminal:

fmedia file.mp3

This command will start the playback of file.mp3 in foreground and quit after the file has finished playing.

If you wish to do it in background, add --background switch to your command:

fmedia file.wav --background

This command will start a new process in background and detach from your console immediately.

fmedia is a portable application (works without installation) and consumes very small amount of system resources. Also, its startup time is instantaneous.

P.S. Use command fmedia.exe --install to add it to your %PATH% environment variable, otherwise you need to execute it with full path, e.g. D:\fmedia\fmedia.exe.

Answer 11

On XP I do this

start /min mplay32 /play /close %WINDIR%\media\tada.wav

It's not ideal but it's really easy and it works.

Answer 12

I use mplayer for this. A bit an overkill as it can play almost any media file. Recent windows builds can be found at spirton, as of 2013. Example usage:

mplayer c:\windows\media\chimes.wav

You should add mplayer.exe to your PATH (see What are PATH and other environment variables, and how can I set or use them? or How can I permanently append an entry into the system's PATH variable, via command line? to do this.)