command not found: elephant

Elephant was the data backend behind Walker, the launcher Omarchy used from v1.6.0 through the 3.x series. Walker drew the window, elephant supplied the results: desktop applications, the calculator, clipboard history, emoji and symbols, files, bluetooth devices, web search, and the theme, background and unlock pickers inside the Omarchy menu. If a shell, a keybinding, or a script tries to run elephant and the binary is not installed, you get command not found: elephant.

What you do about it depends entirely on which major version you are on. Run omarchy-version first.

The fix

On Omarchy 4.x (4.0.0 through 4.0.4)

Elephant is supposed to be missing. Quattro removed it deliberately, so the goal is to stop whatever is still calling it.

1. Find the caller. Search your own config and dotfiles, since nothing shipped in 4.0.4 references the command:

   grep -rn "elephant" ~/.config ~/.local/bin ~/.bashrc ~/.zshrc 2>/dev/null

2. If the hits are in your own scripts, aliases, or Hyprland Lua bindings, repoint them at the Quattro equivalents:

   omarchy-menu toggle        # Super + Space, replaces omarchy-launch-walker
   omarchy-menu toggle apps   # Super + Alt + Space, the app list on its own
   omarchy-menu-clipboard     # replaces omarchy-launch-walker -m clipboard
   omarchy-menu-emoji         # replaces omarchy-launch-walker -m symbols
   omarchy-menu-file          # file picker

3. If the hits are only in leftover ~/.config/hypr/*.conf files, ignore them. Quattro moved Hyprland config to Lua and leaves the old .conf files on disk, but it no longer loads them. See the conf to Lua migration notes.

4. If nothing in your config matches and the menu itself is broken, your upgrade probably stopped partway: the retired packages came off but the new shell never landed. Rerun the upgrade, which is written to be rerun:

   omarchy upgrade to quattro

5. Then restart the shell:

   omarchy-restart-shell

On Omarchy 3.x (3.1.5 and later)

Reinstall the meta package, not the individual providers:

omarchy-pkg-add omarchy-walker
omarchy-restart-walker

omarchy-walker pulls in walker plus every elephant-* provider as one unit. Installing the pieces by hand is what produces error: target not found: elephant-bluetooth and the 404s for individual elephant-* package files.

On Omarchy 3.x before 3.1.5

Update first. The meta package arrived in v3.1.5 on 2025-11-03 precisely because partial removals were bricking the launcher. Open a terminal with Super + Return, run omarchy-update, and if that finishes cleanly the migration installs omarchy-walker for you.

Verify it worked

On 4.x:

omarchy-version                  # expect 4.0.4 or later
command -v elephant              # expect no output, that is correct
omarchy-shell shell ping         # the shell answers if it is running

There is no omarchy-shell.service to check on 4.x. The upgrade script lists that unit among the ones it retires, and Hyprland starts the shell itself through omarchy-launch-shell at login. Then press Super + Space. You should get the native Omarchy menu, and typing should filter apps and commands in the same box.

On 3.x:

pacman -Q omarchy-walker walker
systemctl --user status elephant.service app-walker@autostart.service

Both units should be active. Super + Space should open Walker without a “waiting for elephant” placeholder.

Why it happens

Two different causes share one error string.

The 3.x cause was packaging. Walker and elephant were split across more than a dozen separate packages, and an interrupted or partially applied update could leave some installed and some gone. Several people hit this within hours of each other on 2025-10-19, including #2546 and #2548, and #1738 reported the same shape a month earlier on 3.0.1. In 3.x, omarchy-launch-walker starts elephant directly before launching Walker, so a missing binary surfaces the error the moment you press Super + Space. There was also an intermittent variant where both packages were present but Walker sat on its “Waiting for elephant…” placeholder. On #2638, collaborator ryanrhughes said that case was solved by omarchy-restart-walker while the root cause was still being traced with Walker’s author. v3.1.5 addressed the packaging half by adding the omarchy-walker meta package.

The 4.x cause is by design. The v4.0.0 release notes state that Walker is gone and Super + Space now opens the Omarchy menu itself, with a native launcher merged into that menu inside the shell process. omarchy-upgrade-to-quattro lists elephant and thirteen elephant-* packages among the retired packages it uninstalls, removes elephant.service and app-walker@autostart.service, deletes ~/.config/elephant, and drops the pacman hook that used to restart Walker. So on a 4.x box, anything calling elephant is either your own leftover customisation or an upgrade that did not finish.

If that did not work

• The menu opens but a feature you used is missing. Not everything survived the rewrite. The elephant websearch fallback, where an unmatched query became a browser search, is gone and tracked in #7012, still open as of 4.0.4. Check what replaces what before assuming your install is broken.
• The upgrade rerun fails. omarchy-upgrade-to-quattro stops with a message telling you to fix the error and rerun before rebooting. Work that error first, then see migration failed mid-update.
• Super + Space does nothing at all on 4.x. That is a shell problem rather than an elephant problem. See Quickshell crashes or bar missing.
• You are looking for the old launcher generally rather than this one error. See Walker launcher missing after update.

Related

• Walker launcher missing after update
• Where did Waybar go
• Upgrading 3 to 4 Quattro
• Omarchy command reference
• Omarchy manual: Navigation