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Command Line

Raphaël de Courville edited this page Jan 6, 2026 · 6 revisions

Warning

The information on this page applies to Processing 4. For command line usage in Processing 3 and earlier versions, see this wiki page.

Running sketches in the Processing IDE is cool, but running them in the command-line is even cooler! Running in the command-line means you can automate your sketches, run them without opening the IDE, run sketches on embedded devices, or have sketches run on boot... all super useful!

Changes in Processing 4

Starting with Processing 4.4.3 (see PR #1050), processing-java was renamed to processing cli. This removes the need to distribute multiple binaries or scripts and moves us closer to a consistent command line behavior across platforms.

Getting Started

Make sure Processing is installed, then run the help command to see all available options and examples for your version of Processing.

Windows

processing --help | more

Linux

processing --help

macOS

cd /Applications/Processing.app/Contents/MacOS
./Processing --help

Note: On macOS, the executable lives inside the .app bundle, so that's why there is a command to navigate to it's folder first. On Windows and Linux, Processing is typically added to your PATH by default, so no navigation is needed.

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