FAQ

My apps are pixelated

This just means they are running through XWayland, which physically cannot scale by fractional amounts.

To force them to run in native Wayland mode, see the Master Tutorial.

If they can’t, see the XWayland page.

Nothing renders / screen is empty / crash on opening first app

Possible causes:

Your themes are not set up properly, making apps crash.

Use something like qt6ct (Qt) and nwg-look (GTK) (*for GTK you can also set up themes with envvars) to set up your themes.

Your PC is very, very old.

In that case, see the Installation Page and try compiling with LEGACY_RENDERER

For more info about bugs and crashes, see this wiki page

My external monitor is blank / doesn’t render / receives no signal (laptop)

For Nvidia graphics - This issue appears to be resolved when using Nvidia Drivers 525.60.11 or later, but it may persist with older drivers.

For systems with limited hardware (Ex. iGPU, USB-C, USB Hubs) - Set env = AQ_NO_MODIFIERS,1 in your config. To diagnose if you have the exact problem above you can get a DRM log and look for

Requested display configuration exceeds system DDB limitations

Outside those, there is a way to fix it that might work for you though:

Option 1: Use only the external monitor

By using AQ_DRM_DEVICES=/dev/dri/card1 (or card0) environment variable you can force Hyprland to use only your dGPU, meaning your laptop’s screen will be gone but your external one will work.

Option 2: Use all outputs, at the cost of battery life.

By switching your laptop to only use the dGPU in the BIOS, you might be able to get everything to work, at the cost of high battery usage.

Please note these are highly model-specific and might or might not work. If they don’t, you’re unfortunately out of luck.

You might try a USB-C to HDMI adapter though, maybe that could route the external monitor through the iGPU.

How do I screenshot?

Option 1: Install grim and slurp.

Use a keybind (or execute) grim -g "$(slurp)", and select a region. A screenshot will pop into your ~/Pictures/ (You can configure grim and slurp, see their GitHub pages).

If you want those screenshots to go directly to your clipboard, consider using wl-copy, from wl-clipboard. Here’s an example binding: bind = , Print, exec, grim -g "$(slurp -d)" - | wl-copy For a more complete utility, try our own screenshotting utility: Grimblast.

Option 2: You can also use hyprshot, more info here.

Option 3: Install flameshot.

Flameshot has many built-in features like allowing you to draw with a paintbrush, add lines, add shapes, etc.

Flameshot was built originally for X and it has many issues on Wayland and users with HiDPI and multi-monitor setups have had mixed experiences with Flameshot. The options above are smoother and more native to Wayland. If you still want to use Flameshot, here are some configuration recommendations by users who’ve found workarounds.

# noanim isn't necessary but animations with these rules might look bad. use at your own discretion.
windowrulev2 = noanim, class:^(flameshot)$
windowrulev2 = float, class:^(flameshot)$
windowrulev2 = move 0 0, class:^(flameshot)$
windowrulev2 = pin, class:^(flameshot)$
# set this to your leftmost monitor id, otherwise you have to move your cursor to the leftmost monitor
# before executing flameshot
windowrulev2 = monitor 1, class:^(flameshot)$

# ctrl-c to copy from the flameshot gui gives warped images sometimes, but
# setting the env fixes it
bind = ..., exec, XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway flameshot gui

For recording videos, wf-recorder, wl-screenrec or OBS Studio could be used.

Screenshare / OBS no worky

Check Screensharing.

Also install qt6-wayland if you plan to use obs.

How do I change my wallpaper?

See Wallpapers.

How heavy is this?

Not that much heavier than Xorg. If you want maximum performance, consider turning off the blur and animations.

My monitor no worky

Try changing the mode in your config. If your preferred one doesn’t work, try a lower one. A good way to list all modes is to get wlr-randr and do a wlr-randr --dryrun

My monitor has flickering brightness when I turn on VRR

Change the VRR option to 2 (fullscreen), so that it is only used in games. This happens because the brightness on some monitors can depends on the refresh rate, and rapidly changing refresh rates (for example, when the screen momentarily updates after pressing a key) will cause rapid changes in brightness.

How do I update?

Open a terminal where you cloned the repo.

git pull
make all && sudo make install

If you are using the AUR (hyprland-git) package, you will need to cleanbuild to update the package. Paru has been problematic with updating before, use Yay.

How do I screen lock?

Use a Wayland-compatible locking utility using WLR protocols, e.g. swaylock. Be aware that they will not prevent tty-changing using Ctrl-Alt-F1…F7.

How do I change me mouse cursor?

See hyprcursor

1. Set the GTK cursor using nwg-look.
2. Add exec-once=hyprctl setcursor [THEME] [SIZE] to your config and restart Hyprland.

If using flatpak, run flatpak override --filesystem=~/.themes:ro --filesystem=~/.icons:ro --user and put your themes in both /usr/share/themes and ~/.themes, and put your icons and cursors in both /usr/share/icons and ~/.icons.

For Qt applications, Hyprland exports XCURSOR_SIZE as 24, which is the default. You can overwrite this by exporting XCURSOR_SIZE to a different value with env.

You can also try running gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme 'theme-name' or adding it after exec-once= in your config.

If you do not want to install a GTK settings editor, change the config files according to the XDG specification (Arch Wiki link). Make sure to also edit ~/.config/gtk-4.0/settings.ini and ~/.gtkrc-2.0 if not using a tool (like nwg-look).

GTK Settings no work / whatever

https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki/GTK-3-settings-on-Wayland

My [program name] is freezing

Make sure you have a notification daemon running, for example dunst. Autostart it with the exec-once keyword.

Waybar workspaces no worky???

Waybar has a set of caveats or settings that you need to be aware of. See Status bars for solutions.

How do I autostart my favorite apps?

Using the window rules to assign apps to workspaces, you can open a bunch of applications on various workspaces. The following method will start these apps silently (i.e. without the flickering from workspace to workspace).

Put the following in your hyprland.conf: (example)

exec-once = [workspace 1 silent] kitty
exec-once = [workspace 1 silent] subl
exec-once = [workspace 3 silent] mailspring
exec-once = [workspace 4 silent] firefox

How do I move my favorite workspaces to a new monitor when I plug it in?

If you want workspaces to automatically go to a monitor upon connection, use the following:

In hyprland.conf:

exec-once = handle_monitor_connect.sh

where handle_monitor_connect.sh is: (example)

#!/bin/sh

handle() {
  case $1 in monitoradded*)
    hyprctl dispatch moveworkspacetomonitor "1 1"
    hyprctl dispatch moveworkspacetomonitor "2 1"
    hyprctl dispatch moveworkspacetomonitor "4 1"
    hyprctl dispatch moveworkspacetomonitor "5 1"
  esac
}

socat - "UNIX-CONNECT:$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/hypr/${HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE}/.socket2.sock" | while read -r line; do handle "$line"; done

This makes workspaces 1, 2, 4, and 5 go to monitor 1 when connecting it.

Please note this requires socat to be installed.

My tablet no worky??

Use Open Tablet Driver to configure your tablet. In the future it will be supported in the config. Until then, OTD is the way to go.

Some of my apps take a really long time to open…?

exec-once = dbus-update-activation-environment --systemd WAYLAND_DISPLAY XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP

Make sure that your portals launch after this gets executed. For some people, they might launch before that has happened.

In such cases, a script like this:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
sleep 4
killall -e xdg-desktop-portal-wlr
killall xdg-desktop-portal
/usr/lib/xdg-desktop-portal-wlr &
sleep 4
/usr/lib/xdg-desktop-portal &

launched with exec-once should fix all issues. Adjust the sleep durations to taste.

How do I export envvars for Hyprland?

See Environment Variables

The env keyword is used for this purpose. For example:

env = XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP,Hyprland

How to disable middle-click paste?

Setting misc:middle_click_paste to false disables the feature altogether with the exception of some browsers (notably firefox) having a separate built-in way of emulating that feature which has to be disabled within the browser’s settings.

How do I make Hyprland draw as little power as possible on my laptop?

Useful Optimizations:

• decoration:blur:enabled = false and decoration:shadow:enabled = false to disable fancy but battery hungry effects.

• misc:vfr = true, since it’ll lower the amount of sent frames when nothing is happening on-screen.

My apps take a long time to start / can’t screenshare

See The XDPH Page.

You most likely have multiple portal impls / an impl is failing to launch.

My screenshot utilities won’t work with multiple screens

Some programs like Flameshot (currently) have limited Wayland support, so on most Wayland compositors, you will have to do a few tweaks. For Hyprland, you can add these window rules to your config to make these programs work with both of your screens.

windowrulev2 = float,title:^(flameshot)
windowrulev2 = move 0 0,title:^(flameshot)
windowrulev2 = suppressevent fullscreen,title:^(flameshot)

I cannot bind SUPER as my mod key on my laptop

Many laptops have a built-in function to toggle SUPER between single key press mode and hold mode. This is usually indicated by a padlock on the SUPER key.

First, install and run wev, then press SUPER. If you see a key press event followed by an instant key release event, then it’s likely your SUPER key is set to single press mode.

On most laptops, this can be fixed by pressing FN+SUPER and verified in wev. You should be able to hold SUPER and not see an instant release event. In case FN+SUPER doesn’t work, consult your laptop’s manual.

My VM doesn’t receive keybinds I have set in Hyprland

This is expected, as Hyprland takes precedence.

A simple fix is to create an empty “passthrough” submap:

bind = MOD,KEY,submap,passthru
submap = passthru
bind = SUPER,Escape,submap,reset
submap = reset

Set MOD and KEY to desired values.

By pressing the selected combo, you will enter a mode where Hyprland ignores your keybinds and passes them on to the VM. Pressing SUPER + Escape will leave that mode.

Some of my drop-down/pop-up windows in apps disappear/don’t open at cursor position

In some apps like Steam or VSCode, the drop-down windows may disappear if you hover over them. This can be fixed with window rules.

First, find the title and class of the pop-up window with hyprctl clients. You can try something like sleep 3 && hyprctl clients so you have time to open the pop-up. It should look something like this:

Window 55d794495400 -> :
  ...
  class: [CLASS here]
  title: [TITLE here]
  ...

If the pop-up disappears as you hover over it, you can add to your config:

windowrulev2 = stayfocused, title:^(TITLE)$, class:^(CLASS)$

This has a downside of not being able to click on anything in the main UI until you’ve interacted with the pop-up.

If the pop-up disappears immediately, you can use:

windowrulev2 = minsize 1 1, title:^(TITLE)$, class:^(CLASS)$

If the pop-up doesn’t open at the cursor position, try the following:

windowrulev2 = move onscreen cursor, title:^(TITLE)$, class:^(CLASS)$

This is required for apps running under xwayland only and there is usually no need to use the first solution if opening at the cursor position.

Steam’s file picker no worky

On instances where you have a Steam library on another drive that you have to add, Hyprland’s file picker would not normally appear when selecting a directory from Steam.

Steam has its own file picker, however, it’s not functional. Install xdg-desktop-portal-gtk to show the desktop’s file picker.

Workspaces or clients are disappearing or monitor related dispatchers cause crashes

It seems there is a Kernel bug making the system think there is an extra phantom monitor, that causes all sorts of issues, crashes and weird behaviors like disapearing workspaces or clients when adding or removing an external monitor.

First check the list of monitors detected by Hyprland by running:

hyprctl monitors

If you see a monitor that should not be there (usually named Unknown-1), you can work around the issue by adding in your hyprland.conf:

monitor = Unknown-1,disabled

I get a .so file missing error on launch

If you are using a -git package, this is a common occurrence when ABI-breaking updates are done.

Do not symlink different .so versions, this will cause crashes!!!

Instead, find all hypr* packages with -git you have installed, remove them (possibly remove dependencies of them, too) and simply install them again.

If using yay, make sure to CleanBuild every package. If using paru, manually remove the cache of hypr* packages in ~/.cache/paru.

If you are not using any -git packages, this is a mistake in your distro’s packaging and should be solved there.

My cursor is a hyprland icon?

This means you have no hyprcursor theme installed, and hyprland failed to find an XCursor theme as well. Install a cursor theme.

Smart gaps please?

Here.

Hyprwinwrap is not visible through blurred windows

This is a side effect of the decoration:blur:new_optimizations. You have two options to resolve it.

1. Set decoration:blur:new_optimizations to false - This will preserve the exact same appearance, but may have a slight performance cost.
2. Set decoration:blur:ignore_opacity to false - This will drastically affect the appearance, but should maintain the original performance.