Arch Linux

TheFinnishOne

Member

Registered: 2025-07-18

Posts: 6

How do I make rhythmbox keep playing music after closing it's window

On other distros like mint, rhythmbox keeps playing music even after closing it's window. How do I make this work on arch? I tried hyprland and KDE Plasma, so it's not a DE specific issue.

Last edited by TheFinnishOne (2025-08-23 22:50:12)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,075

Re: How do I make rhythmbox keep playing music after closing it's window

Mint has an explicit custom plugin that implements this. It's packaged under https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/rhyt … -tray-icon for Arch, but if the latest comment is to be believed it might not build anymore.

TheFinnishOne

Member

Registered: 2025-07-18

Posts: 6

Re: How do I make rhythmbox keep playing music after closing it's window

I was able to download the AUR package, however, in rhythmbox when trying to enable the plugin it fails and shows an error message: Plugin loader "python3" was not found. Trying to change the

Loader=python3

line to

Loader=python

in

/usr/lib/rhythmbox/plugins/rhythmbox-tray-icon/tray_icon.plugin

didn't work.

Vamp898

Member

Registered: 2009-01-03

Posts: 1,032

Website

Re: How do I make rhythmbox keep playing music after closing it's window

There are workarounds but(!) the official answer is, Rhythmbox does not support that.

It is an very simple music player that is written to just do its job. Its kinda like the GUI Version of cmus.

When you close Rhythmbox, it kills itself, that is how it was programmed. There are ways to circumvent that, but there is a high chance that they break after upgrades and stuff.

If you really like rhythmbox, you have to live with minimizing it. Alternatively, you have to use a different music player.

Sorry to ruin your day maybe^^ but at least you know, you are doing nothing wrong. It is not an issue, Rhythmbox is supposed to work like that, its by design.

Last edited by Vamp898 (2025-09-10 14:37:37)

TheFinnishOne

Member

Registered: 2025-07-18

Posts: 6

Re: How do I make rhythmbox keep playing music after closing it's window

Hmm, fair enough. Not being able to close the window isn't a dealbreaker, as I can still look into other software.

I'm marking the post as solved.

EDIT: nvm, the title is too long.

Last edited by TheFinnishOne (2025-09-11 16:49:07)