Using bash & cron to chime at specific times - "guide" (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by NewDawnOwl@lemmy.world to c/linux4noobs@programming.dev

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I made a little script to get to grips with cron and to try to make my time management better :

If you want music to play, use ffmpeg/ffplay. If you want notifications, use notify-send. If you want neither, what are you doing reading this?

Save the following to chime.sh or whatever you want to call this

#! /bin/bash
# replace 1000 with your user id , run $ id -u to find out. this is to allow audio to play
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="/run/user/1000"
# checks what minute it is past the hour to play specific chime
case $(date +"%M") in
        15|30|45) ffplay -autoexit -nodisp /path/to/your/chime.mp3
        notify-send "BONG";;
        00) ffplay -autoexit -nodisp /path/to/your/hourly/chime.mp3
        notify-send "HOUR";;
        *) notify-send $(date +"%M");;
esac

run

chmod +x chime.sh

Or whatever you called the file.

run

crontab -e

to open/config cron

Add

*/15 * * * * /path/to/your/chime.sh

This triggers the cron job every 15 mins. you can adjust the timings on both the cron config and the shell script to adjust how often you want chimes to go off.

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[-] toynbee@piefed.social 1 points 14 hours ago

I remember echo -e "\a"

[-] NewDawnOwl@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

oooooooo... I should try it.

EDIT : for others, you might need to set up/enable terminal bell

[-] magikmw@piefed.social 1 points 14 hours ago

Hey, just wanted to mention I finally got around to this bookmark and implemented it on my system. Works great so far, I just need a cleaner sound because the chime I found is kinda noisy.

Thanks for this post.

Fighting Time Blindness one chime at a time.

[-] NewDawnOwl@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

Fighting Time Blindness one chime at a time.

I feel so seen 🥲, thank you so much. I'm happy it helped you, thank you for letting me know it's useful to you.

I've had to up it to once every 10, and I'm considering lowering it to 5 or 6, and changing the case statement to be a division/modulus calcuation.

There's various sound effects on https://www.myinstants.com/ , I'm using one of the airhorn sounds from there 🙈

this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2026

9 points (100.0% liked)

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