Location

[location] is the single source of “where am I” for the whole shell. It resolves your coordinates and feeds Weather, Night Light, and Theme auto. Configure under Settings → Location.

[location]
auto_locate = false            # resolve coordinates from your IP address when true
address     = "Toronto, ON"    # geocoded when auto_locate = false and non-empty
# latitude  = 52.5200          # manual coordinates, used when auto_locate and address are off
# longitude = 13.4050

# Custom schedule - pick your own day/night times instead of computing them:
# custom_schedule = true
# sunset          = "20:30"    # HH:MM - night starts
# sunrise         = "07:30"    # HH:MM - day starts

Coordinates

Coordinates resolve in this order: auto_locate (IP) → address (geocoded) → manual latitude/longitude. The first one that resolves wins. If only one of latitude/longitude is provided, the manual coordinates are ignored.

Once coordinates are known, sunrise and sunset are computed astronomically for your position and change with the seasons. This is the default, and it is all most people need.

Custom schedule

Set custom_schedule = true to drive day and night from sunset/sunrise instead — useful if you want night light and a dark theme on a fixed routine rather than on the actual sun.

A custom schedule overrides coordinates: when it is on and both times are valid HH:MM values, the computed sunrise and sunset are not used. Coordinates are still resolved for Weather, which always needs a real position.

sunset and sunrise do nothing unless custom_schedule = true. They are not a fallback for “coordinates failed to resolve” — if no coordinates are available and no custom schedule is set, Night Light and Theme auto simply have no schedule to follow, and Noctalia says so in its log and in a notification.

Turning on custom_schedule without a valid sunset and sunrise is a configuration error: Noctalia reports it (noctalia config validate flags it, Settings shows a banner) rather than silently falling back to coordinates.

Upgrading from an earlier version

sunset/sunrise used to schedule day and night on their own whenever coordinates were unavailable. They now require custom_schedule = true. Noctalia migrates existing configs that relied on the old behavior — times set and no coordinate source — by turning custom_schedule on for you, and tells you to add the key to your own config file.

When auto_locate = true, location lookup goes through noctalia.dev to resolve approximate coordinates from your IP address. See the Noctalia privacy policy for how this service is handled.

Location resolution runs independently of Weather - auto_locate and address work even when Weather is disabled, so Night Light and Theme auto get real coordinates on their own.