Ente CLI

ente is Ente's client for terminals and agents. Use it from a shell or a script for things like keeping a copy of your Photos library on your own disk, backing up your Auth codes, or administering your own server.

Export your Photos library

Install the CLI, then log in and export:

ente account login --app photos
ente photos export "$HOME/Pictures/Ente"

Login asks for your email and password, and for a verification code when your account requires one. The export prints progress while it runs and ends with a summary:

/home/alice/Pictures/Ente: 1200/1200 album copies complete, 1200 exported, 0 moved to Trash, 0 failures (0 conflicts).

Run the same command again whenever you want to pick up new photos. Learn more in Photos.

Find your task

I want to…	Page
Download the CLI, verify it, add it to my PATH, enable completion	Install Ente CLI
Log in, use a self-hosted server, keep several accounts, run headless	Accounts
Export my library, keep the export updated, find and download a file	Photos
Back up my Auth codes or show a current code	Auth
Share text through a one-time link	Paste
Manage users on my own server	Administration
Schedule exports and read results from a script or an agent	Automation
Switch from the previous CLI	Migration
Fix an error	Troubleshooting

Help and output

• ente help <command> prints help for one command, for example ente help photos export. ente help --all prints help for every command. ente help migration lists what changed from the previous CLI.
• --json prints the result as JSON. --no-input disables prompts, so a script fails instead of waiting. --offline reads data the CLI has already synced.
• --account NAME after a subcommand picks a saved account: ente photos album list --account personal.

The CLI keeps its data in the CLI home, a directory described in Accounts. ente help, ente --version and ente completion never create it.