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To Mute:

amixer -D pulse sset Master mute

To Unmute:

amixer -D pulse sset Master unmute

To turn volume up 5%:

amixer -D pulse sset Master 5%+

To turn volume down 5%:

amixer -D pulse sset Master 5%-

pactl/pacmd (unlike amixer) allows to increase volume over 100% :-).

pactl set-sink-mute 0 toggle  # toggle mute

pactl set-sink-volume 0 0     # mute (force)

pactl set-sink-volume 0 100%  # max

pactl set-sink-volume 0 +5%   # +5% (up)

pactl set-sink-volume 0 -5%   # -5% (down)

Manual settings over 100% is possible in pavucontrol (unlike alsamixer).

NOTE: If you want to share the same commands on different hosts with different sinks, you can use @DEFAULT_SINK@ as a sink instead of number 0:

pactl set-sink-volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ +5%

You set your default sink with pactl set-default-sink my-sink-name (list names with pactl list short sinks).

UPDATE: added toggle mute (thanks to Don Joe).

Source: askubuntu.com, wiki.archlinux.org.

if the user has muted the device you have to 'unmute' it. otherwise setting the percentage will work but the sound is still off

amixer set 'Master' 100% unmute

/usr/bin/amixer set 'PCM' 100% unmute

pevik's answer is almost correct for PulseAudio, with two things to mention:

• the negative volume change command will generate an error because the minus-something portion of it will be interpreted as a separate (unrecognized) option; you need to turn off option parsing with a double-minus somewhere before the negative number, e.g. " -- -5%"




• the true mute state is something that should be possible to toggle with the same key, which won't work if you're just setting the volume to a fixed value of 0, so the right command for that would be:

pactl set-sink-mute @DEFAULT_SINK@ toggle

LE:
Whether the first hint is applicable may depend on the version of PulseAudio you're running or on something else in the distro - I notice that on Ubuntu 16 it works without the "--" and fails if I add "--" in front of the negative percentage.

Higher volume:

amixer set Master 3%+

Lower volume:

amixer set Master 3%-

Mute toggle:

amixer set Master toggle

Example keybindings for i3/sway, the commands are after exec:

bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec amixer set Master 3%+

bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec amixer set Master 3%-

bindsym XF86AudioMute exec amixer set Master toggle

bindsym Ctrl+$alt+Up  exec amixer set Master 3%+

bindsym Ctrl+$alt+Down exec amixer set Master 3%-

amixer worked for me but I didn't get the nice animation that I get when I press the volume up button on my keyboard.

I decided to use xte to directly press that key from the command line:

Volume up:
xte 'key 0x1008ff13'

Volume down:
xte 'key 0x1008ff11'

Mute:
xte 'key 0x1008ff12'

I figured out the keysym (that hex number) by using xev.

sudo apt-get install xbindkeys xautomation

xev

and then press the volume up button on your keyboard to get the keysym. The key sym may vary from system to system so finding it from xev will be the most reliable way.

The result looks like this for me:

KeyRelease event, serial 37, synthetic NO, window 0x2c00001,
root 0xef, subw 0x0, time 6660080, (566,573), root:(664,651),
state 0x0, keycode 123 (keysym 0x1008ff13, XF86AudioRaiseVolume), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False

sudo apt-get install xbindkeys xautomation
xev