dmenu ☆

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Description:
Dynamic menu for X11

Type: Formula | Latest Version: 5.4@0 | Tracked Since: Dec 17, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: System utilities

Tags: x11 launcher menu utility suckless

Install: brew install dmenu

About:
dmenu is a minimalist dynamic menu for X11 that reads a list of items from standard input and presents them as a menu. It captures user input via keyboard to filter and select items efficiently. Its primary value is providing a fast, scriptable launcher interface for window managers.

Key Features:

Minimalist and fast: lightweight codebase ensures low latency and low resource usage
Scriptable: reads from stdin and outputs the selected item to stdout for easy shell integration
X11 native: integrates with standard X window manager environments
Configurable: behavior and appearance can be tuned via patches or build-time flags

Use Cases:

Application launcher for minimal window managers like dwm or i3
Scriptable selection menu for shell scripts and automation

Alternatives:

rofi – Feature-rich launcher with window switching and theming, larger footprint
fzf – Fuzzy finder for terminal, not X11-native; great for CLI workflows

License: MIT

Dependencies: fontconfig, libx11, libxft, libxinerama

Bottles available for: arm64_tahoe, arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, arm64_ventura, sonoma, ventura, arm64_linux, x86_64_linux

Version History

Detected	Version	Rev	Change	Commit
Nov 29, 2022 2:11am		0	VERSION_BUMP	407a38a3