# Playing songs

> Play music with /play and control what's playing.

Category: Getting started · Updated: 2026-09-14 · Source: https://eara.io/help-center/playing-songs

Use `/play` to play music. Join a voice channel and run it; eara joins your
channel automatically, so there's no need to run `/join` first. eara has to be
[added to your server](/add) before you can use it.

## Play your first song

1. Join a voice channel in your server.
2. Run `/play query:[song name or link]`.
3. Pick an autocomplete suggestion, or press enter to use your own text.

[Video: Typing /play and drake in the query option, picking Shabang from the suggestions, and eara adding it to the queue and starting to play it](https://eara.io/help/play-autocomplete.mp4)

If nothing is playing, your song starts immediately. Otherwise it's added to the end of the
queue.

> You need to be in a voice channel to use `/play`. If eara is already playing
> in another channel, join that one instead; eara won't switch channels while it's playing.

## Search or link

The `query` option accepts either:

- **A search**, like `/play query:never gonna give you up`. eara searches for the
  song and shows matching results.
- **A link** to a song, album, or playlist. eara queues the song, or every song in the album or
  playlist.

Not every site is supported; see [Supported sites](/help-center/supported-sites) for the full
list. Some sites, like YouTube, only work in servers with **Premium**. See
[Premium](/help-center/premium).

## Choose where your song goes

New songs go to the end of the queue by default. Use the `when` option to change that:

| `when` | What happens |
| --- | --- |
| `Later` | Adds to the end of the queue (default). |
| `Next` | Plays after the current song. |
| `Now` | Starts playing immediately. |

The `shuffle` option shuffles **only the songs you're adding**, which is handy for albums and
playlists:

`/play query:[link] shuffle:true`

To shuffle songs already in the queue, use `/shuffle`.

## Control the music

- `/pause` pauses playback.
- `/resume` resumes from where it paused.
- `/seek position:1:30` jumps to a timestamp, written as minutes and seconds.
- `/volume value:50` sets the volume. Run `/volume` without a value to see the
  current volume.
- `/now-playing` shows the current song.
- `/stop` stops playback and clears the queue.

`/join` brings eara to your voice channel and `/leave` disconnects it. Most of
these commands only work when you're in the same voice channel as eara.

## When the queue is empty

By default, playback stops after the last song. To keep going with songs eara recommends, turn
on autoplay:

`/settings autoplay value:true`

See [Server settings](/help-center/server-settings) for more options.

## Find more commands

- `/help` lists every command, and `/help command:play` explains one command and all
  of its options. The full list is also on the [commands page](/commands).
- If something looks wrong, `/debug` shows the player's state and `/ping` checks
  whether the bot is healthy.