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I'm attempting to make a new top bar for my system (Pop OS 22.04) using polybar. I have it all mostly working, and am attempting to make a power menu. I have the logout, power and restart buttons all working, but am struggling on the lock button.

I have a label with the left-click action set a bash script. I have confirmed that the script is getting executed as if I have script launch Firefox it does. The problem is that that I have not been able to find a working command. I have tried

gnome-screensaver-command --lock

xdg-screensaver lock

dbus-send --type=method_call --dest=org.gnome.ScreenSaver/org/gnome/ScreenSaver org.gnome.ScreenSaver.Lock

They all work when run in the terminal, but not in a bash script. I think it may have somthing to do with polybar running them as root, so I tried running them as my user, but that did not solve it.

Is there some command that locks the screen of a specified user/desktop environment?

Thanks. Just comment if any more info is needed.

All of the commands mentioned where taken from answers from this question.

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    Could you try setting the display in the script? i.e. export DISPLAY=:0 && xdg-screensaver lock Commented Sep 26, 2024 at 16:24
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    Or some rough logic if the display is not using main default: export DISPLAY=${DISPLAY:-:0} && xdg-screensaver lock Commented Sep 26, 2024 at 16:27
  • Sure, I won't be able to check for a couple hours though. Commented Sep 26, 2024 at 16:28
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    I refused to believe this was only available through screensaver controls: loginctl lock-session. Commented Sep 26, 2024 at 17:00
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    I finally got some time to sit down and test this and have confirmed that it works. I would call it a "forceful" lock, as it skips the animation and blacks the screen. But it still works for what I need. I had no idea loginctl existed. Thank you! Commented Sep 27, 2024 at 13:43

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