Why isn't it possible to have a logoff sound in Gnome?

Gnome used to have login and logoff sounds, but they removed them and made it impossible to add a logout sound back. Login and logoff sounds are one of the nicest things for a desktop environment to have, because it sets the mood when logging in and off of the PC. This could be implemented by making it so if the sound theme has a login or logoff sound, then those sounds will play.

The login sound is already there and is rather nice (tho you can change it). It’s in

/usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo and called service-login.oga

Install the mpv player:

sudo apt install mpv

Then make an autostart folder in your .config folder

/home/yourname/.config

and a file called

loginsound.desktop containing:

----------------------

[Desktop Entry]

Type=Application

Exec=mpv /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/service-login.oga

Hidden=false

NoDisplay=false

X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true

Name=Login Sound

--------------------------

To test, run:

mpv /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/service-login.oga

Don’t know about logout. The sound is already there but we’re using autostart so…

Edit:

3. Shutdown/Logout Scripts

Because GNOME and modern Linux desktops rely on systemd user sessions, there is no physical folder to drop a script into for execution upon shutdown. Instead, you must create a custom systemd service for the user.