The complete list of Alexa commands – CNET

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, is infiltrating your home, beach trips and even your ride to work. Now that there are three ways to talk to Alexa — with Tap, Echo and Dot — you mind find yourself talking to her a bit more often.

The list of commands is expanding rapidly, as is the number of third-party services and devices that Alexa officially (and unofficially) supports.

Here is the (almost) complete list of Amazon Alexa commands.

Summoning Alexa

By default, Amazon’s connected speakers have the same wake word. All you have to do to queue up a request is say, “Alexa.” In the Amazon Alexa mobile application or at echo.amazon.com, you can change the wake word to either Amazon, Echo or Dot, depending on which speaker you have.

If you have an Amazon Tap, press the button on the speaker to wake Alexa. Unfortunately, even when cradled, the Tap doesn’t have a wake word.

The complete list of Alexa commands

The list of Alexa commands is expansive and grows with every new service or device it supports. Alexa isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty great at understanding natural language. So you don’t always have to speak the commands exactly as you see them below. Many commands work when worded several different ways or even with words omitted.

More Alexa tips & how-tos

• Which devices work with Alexa?
• Alexa tip: Wake up to any song on Spotify
• Use Alexa to send text messages

When you consider the possible third-party commands through Skills, the list goes on even further. To learn individual skills are capable of, visit the skill’s page from the Amazon Alexa app or echo.amazon.com. You can also say, “Alexa, open [name of skill].”

Here are all the native Alexa commands.

Basic commands

• Ask for help: “Alexa, help.”
• Mute or unmute: “Alexa, mute” or “Alexa, unmute.”
• Stop or pause: “Alexa, stop” or “Alexa, shut up.”
• Change volume: “Alexa, set volume to 5,” “Alexa, louder” or “Alexa, turn up/down the volume.”

Media controls

• Play music: “Alexa, play some music.”
• Queue specific song or artist: “Alexa, play music by [artist].”
• Play Spotify music: “Alexa, play on Spotify.”
• Play Pandora station: “Alexa, play [artist] station on Pandora.”
• Play a radio station: “Alexa, play [radio station] on TuneIn.”
• Play an audiobook: “Alexa, play [title] on Audible,” “Alexa, read [title]” or “Alexa, play the book, [title].”
• Resume the last played audiobook: “Alexa, resume my book.”
• Skip audiobook chapters: “Alexa, next chapter” or “Alexa, previous chapter.”
• Set a sleep timer: “Alexa set a sleep timer for 45 minutes” or “Alexa, stop playing in 45 minutes.”
• Song information: “Alexa, what’s playing?”
• Music controls: “Alexa, play” or “Alexa, next.”
• Restart song: “Alexa, restart.”
• Add a song to your Prime Music library: “Alexa, add this song.”
• Like or dislike a song on Pandora and iHeartRadio: “Alexa, I like this song” or “Alexa, thumbs down”

Time and date

• Set an alarm: “Alexa, set an alarm for 7 a.m.” or “Alexa, wake me up at 7 in the morning.”
• Set a timer: “Alexa, set a timer for 15 minutes.”
• Check timer status: “Alexa, how much time is left on my timer?”
• Ask the time: “Alexa what time is it?”
• Ask the date: “Alexa, what’s the date?”
• Ask when the next alarm is: “Alexa, when’s my next alarm?”
• Cancel an alarm: “Alexa, cancel my alarm for 2 p.m.”
• Snooze alarm: “Alexa, snooze.”
• Check dates: Alexa, when is [holiday] this year?”

To-do and shopping lists

• Add task to to-do list: “Alexa, add go to the grocery store to my to-do list” or “Alexa, I need to make an appointment with the doctor.”
• Create a new to-do item: “Alexa, create a to-do.”
• Check calendar events: “Alexa, what’s on my calendar for tomorrow?”
• Add an event to a calendar: “Alexa, add [event] to my calendar for [day] at [time]” or “Alexa, add an event to my calendar.”
• Create a shopping list: “Alexa, add eggs to my shopping list” or “Alexa, I need to buy laundry detergent.”
• Check your shopping list: “Alexa, what’s on my shopping list?”

News and weather

• Ask for your Flash Briefing: “Alexa, what’s my Flash Briefing?”
• Check headlines: “Alexa, what’s in the news?”
• Check weather: “Alexa, what’s the weather like?” or “Alexa, will it rain today?”
• Get a weather forecast: “Alexa, what’s the weather going to be like this weekend?
• Get traffic information: “Alexa, what’s my commute look like?” or “Alexa, what’s traffic like?”

Here’s everything the Amazon Echo can do…

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Entertainment and food

• Find movies in nearby theaters: “Alexa, what movies are playing?” or “Alexa, what action movies are playing tonight?”
• Get information on movies playing: “Alexa, tell me about the movie [movie].”
• Discover nearby restaurants: “Alexa, find me a nearby pizza restaurant.”
• Get operating hours or a phone number for local businesses: “Alexa, find the address for Bank of America” or “Alexa, find business hours for Harris Teeter.”
• Get IMDb rating: “Alexa, what is the IMDb rating for [movie or TV show]?
• Get casting for a movie or show: “Alexa, who plays in [movie or TV show]?
• Find out who an actor is: “Alexa, who plays [character] in [movie or TV show]?
• Find an actor’s latest work: “Alexa, what is [actor] latest movie?
• Find out who sings a particular song: “Who sings the song [song name]?”
• Get the names of band members: “Who is in the band [band name]?”
• Get album information: “What year did [band] release [song or album]?”
• Find popular music from an artist: “Alexa, what’s popular from [artist]?”
• Sample music from an artist: “Alexa, sample songs by [artist].”
• Find a particular album or song: “Alexa, find [song or album] by [artist].”

Math

• Convert units: “Alexa, how many [units] are in [units]?”
• Convert units: “Alexa, how many [units] are in 2 [units]?”
• Basic math: “Alexa, what’s 5 plus 7?” or “Alexa, what’s 56 times 33?”
• Advanced math: “Alexa, 70 factorial.” (Warning: Alexa will list numbers you didn’t know existed for about a minute.)

Definitions and spelling

• Get the definition of a word: “Alexa, what’s the definition of [word]?”
• Get the spelling of a word: “Alexa, how do you spell [word]?”

Sports

• Check the results of a finished game: “Alexa, what was the score of the [team name] game?”
• Ask if a team won: “Alexa, did the [team name] win?”
• Ask when the next game is scheduled: “Alexa, when do the [team name] play next?”

Purchasing

• Reorder essentials from Amazon: “Alexa, buy more deodorant” or “Alexa, reorder deodorant.”
• Order an Amazon Alexa device: “Alexa, order an Echo,” “Alexa, order an Echo Dot” or “Alexa, order an Amazon Tap.”
• Add an item to your cart: “Alexa, add garbage bags to my cart.”
• While listening to music in Amazon Music: “Alexa, buy this song” or “Alexa, buy this album.”
• Find new music to purchase: “Alexa, shop for new music by [artist].”
• Purchase a song or album from an artist: “Alexa, buy [song or album] by [artist].”

Voicecast

• Send current listening to a Fire tablet: “Alexa, send that to my Fire tablet.”
• Send to a different profile’s Fire tablet: “Alexa, show this on Alex’s Fire tablet.”

Smart home

• Turn off or on lights: “Alexa, turn on the lights” or “Alexa, turn off the living room lights.”
• Dim the lights: “Alexa, dim the lights to 50 percent.”
• Adjust temperature: “Alexa, raise the temperature one degree.”
• Set temperate: “Alexa, set the temperature to 72.”
• Discover smart home devices: “Alexa, discover my devices.”
• Pair a Bluetooth device: “Alexa, pair” or “Alexa, Bluetooth.”
• Connect to a Bluetooth device: “Alexa, connect to my phone.”
• Disconnect from a a Bluetooth device: “Alexa, disconnect from my phone.”

Profiles and user accounts

• Switch profiles: “Alexa, switch accounts.”
• Check which profile is active: “Alexa, which profile is this?”

Search

• Get Wikipedia information: “Alexa, Wikipedia: [subject].”
• Tell Alexa to continue reading a Wikipedia entry: “Alexa, tell me more.”
• Ask a general question: “Alexa, how tall is [person or object’s name]?”
• Ask a general question: “Alexa, how many people live in America?”

Easter eggs

Alexa comes chock-full of easter eggs and jokes — the list is long. Ry Crist covered the strange world of Alexa Easter eggs recently, noting some of the more popular or prominent commands you can speak to Alexa to prompt a snarky or humorous response.

• “Alexa, beam me up.”
• “Alexa, set phasers to kill.”
• “Alexa. Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”
• “Alexa, my name is Inigo Montoya.”
• “Alexa, I want the truth.”
• “Alexa, party on, Wayne.”
• “Alexa, show me the money.”
• “Alexa, what’s the first (or second) rule of Fight Club?”
• “Alexa, surely you can’t be serious.”
• “Alexa, are you sky net?”
• “Alexa, party time!”
• “Alexa, when am I going to die?”
• “Alexa, what is your quest?”

For even more, check out this Reddit thread dedicated to Alexa Easter eggs.