---
name: "totem"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "totem"
version: "43.2-7"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/totem"
---

# totem(1)

Movie player

## NAME

GNOME Videos - Movie player

## SYNOPSIS

**totem** \[*option...*\] \[*filenames*\|*URI*\]

## DESCRIPTION

**Videos** is a movie player for the GNOME desktop.  Through use of the **GStreamer** backend many popular file and streaming formats are supported including: H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC) MPEG-4, WebM and AV1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1, as well as legacy videos types: Ogg, AVI, ASF, MOV, WMV, QuickTime, and more. Playback of DVDs is also possible.

For additional documentation on interactive use of  **Videos** select the *Help* menu option.  The menus allow access to some features not available through keybindings or command-line options.

## OPTIONS

- **-?, --help**

  Output a longer help message then quit.  (Any discrepancies between this man page and the output of **totem --help** should be reported as a documentation bug.)

- **--version**

  Output version information then quit.

The following options command an already-running instance of **Videos** to do something; they are useful for remote-control scripting. If  **Videos** is not already running, these commands will launch a new instance of **Videos** but will not do anything further.

- **--play-pause**

  Tell an already-running instance of  **Videos** to toggle between play and pause.

- **--play**

  Tell an already-running instance of **Videos** to play (has no effect if already playing)

- **--pause**

  Tell an already-running instance of **Videos** to pause (has no effect if already paused)

- **--next**

  Tell an already-running instance of  **Videos** to skip to the next movie or chapter in the playlist.

- **--previous**

  Tell an already-running instance of  **Videos** to return to the previous movie or chapter in the playlist.

- **--seek-fwd**

  Tell an already-running instance of  **Videos** to seek forwards 15 seconds in the current movie.

- **--seek-bwd**

  Tell an already-running instance of  **Videos** to seek backwards 15 seconds in the current movie.

- **--volume-up**

  Tell an already-running instance of  **Videos** to raise the volume by 8%.

- **--volume-down**

  Tell an already-running instance of  **Videos** to lower the volume by 8%.

- **--mute**

  Tell an already-running instance of  **Videos** to toggle between muted and unmuted audio.

- **--fullscreen**

  Tell an already-running instance of  **Videos** to toggle fullscreen mode.

- **--quit**

  Tell an already-running instance of **Videos** to quit.

- **--enqueue** *filename\|URI*

  Tell an already-running instance of **Videos** to add a new stream to the playlist.

- **--replace** *filename\|URI*

  Tell an already-running instance of **Videos** to play from the playlist.

## KEYBINDINGS

Information about keybindings is available once the application is started by typing **Ctrl+Question Mark** which might require pressing Shift in some keyboard configurations.

- */usr/lib/totem/plugins/*

  ## FILES

The global plugins directory, which contains all the system-installed plugins.

*~/.local/share/totem/plugins/*

The user plugins directory, containing plugins available only to that user. It is always in the "totem/plugins" subdirectory of your  **XDG\_DATA\_HOME** directory.

*~/.config/totem/state.ini*

The configuration file for the main window's appearance, stored in a simple INI format.

## BUGS

**Videos** cannot play files using some proprietary codecs.

## AUTHOR

**Videos** was written by Bastien Nocera \<hadess@hadess.net\>. This manual page was written by Andre Lehovich for the Debian Project.

## DISTRIBUTION

The latest version of Videos may be downloaded from \<https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.Totem\> ⟨https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.Totem⟩

## SEE ALSO

[**totem-video-thumbnailer**(1)](/totem-video-thumbnailer/1.md),

The online documentation available through the program's *Help* menu.