Class: Tray

Add icons and context menus to the system’s notification area.

Process: Main

Tray is an EventEmitter.

const {app, Menu, Tray} = require('electron')

let tray = null
app.on('ready', () => {
  tray = new Tray('/path/to/my/icon')
  const contextMenu = Menu.buildFromTemplate([
    {label: 'Item1', type: 'radio'},
    {label: 'Item2', type: 'radio'},
    {label: 'Item3', type: 'radio', checked: true},
    {label: 'Item4', type: 'radio'}
  ])
  tray.setToolTip('This is my application.')
  tray.setContextMenu(contextMenu)
})

Platform limitations:

• On Linux the app indicator will be used if it is supported, otherwise GtkStatusIcon will be used instead.
• On Linux distributions that only have app indicator support, you have to install libappindicator1 to make the tray icon work.
• App indicator will only be shown when it has a context menu.
• When app indicator is used on Linux, the click event is ignored.
• On Linux in order for changes made to individual MenuItems to take effect, you have to call setContextMenu again. For example:

const {app, Menu, Tray} = require('electron')

let appIcon = null
app.on('ready', () => {
  appIcon = new Tray('/path/to/my/icon')
  const contextMenu = Menu.buildFromTemplate([
    {label: 'Item1', type: 'radio'},
    {label: 'Item2', type: 'radio'}
  ])

  // Make a change to the context menu
  contextMenu.items[1].checked = false

  // Call this again for Linux because we modified the context menu
  appIcon.setContextMenu(contextMenu)
})

• On Windows it is recommended to use ICO icons to get best visual effects.

If you want to keep exact same behaviors on all platforms, you should not rely on the click event and always attach a context menu to the tray icon.

new Tray(image)

• image (NativeImage | String)

Creates a new tray icon associated with the image.

Instance Events

The Tray module emits the following events:

Event: ‘click’

• event Event
  • altKey Boolean
  • shiftKey Boolean
  • ctrlKey Boolean
  • metaKey Boolean
• bounds Rectangle - The bounds of tray icon

Emitted when the tray icon is clicked.

Event: ‘right-click’ macOS Windows

• event Event
  • altKey Boolean
  • shiftKey Boolean
  • ctrlKey Boolean
  • metaKey Boolean
• bounds Rectangle - The bounds of tray icon

Emitted when the tray icon is right clicked.

Event: ‘double-click’ macOS Windows

• event Event
  • altKey Boolean
  • shiftKey Boolean
  • ctrlKey Boolean
  • metaKey Boolean
• bounds Rectangle - The bounds of tray icon

Emitted when the tray icon is double clicked.

Event: ‘balloon-show’ Windows

Emitted when the tray balloon shows.

Event: ‘balloon-click’ Windows

Emitted when the tray balloon is clicked.

Event: ‘balloon-closed’ Windows

Emitted when the tray balloon is closed because of timeout or user manually closes it.

Event: ‘drop’ macOS

Emitted when any dragged items are dropped on the tray icon.

Event: ‘drop-files’ macOS

• event Event
• files String[] - The paths of the dropped files.

Emitted when dragged files are dropped in the tray icon.

Event: ‘drop-text’ macOS

• event Event
• text String - the dropped text string

Emitted when dragged text is dropped in the tray icon.

Event: ‘drag-enter’ macOS

Emitted when a drag operation enters the tray icon.

Event: ‘drag-leave’ macOS

Emitted when a drag operation exits the tray icon.

Event: ‘drag-end’ macOS

Emitted when a drag operation ends on the tray or ends at another location.

Event: ‘mouse-enter’ macOS

• event Event
  • altKey Boolean
  • shiftKey Boolean
  • ctrlKey Boolean
  • metaKey Boolean
• position Point - The position of the event

Emitted when the mouse enters the tray icon.

Event: ‘mouse-leave’ macOS

• event Event
  • altKey Boolean
  • shiftKey Boolean
  • ctrlKey Boolean
  • metaKey Boolean
• position Point - The position of the event

Emitted when the mouse exits the tray icon.

Instance Methods

The Tray class has the following methods:

tray.destroy()

Destroys the tray icon immediately.

tray.setImage(image)

• image (NativeImage | String)

Sets the image associated with this tray icon.

tray.setPressedImage(image) macOS

• image NativeImage

Sets the image associated with this tray icon when pressed on macOS.

tray.setToolTip(toolTip)

• toolTip String

Sets the hover text for this tray icon.

tray.setTitle(title) macOS

• title String

Sets the title displayed aside of the tray icon in the status bar.

tray.setHighlightMode(mode) macOS

• mode String - Highlight mode with one of the following values:
  • selection - Highlight the tray icon when it is clicked and also when its context menu is open. This is the default.
  • always - Always highlight the tray icon.
  • never - Never highlight the tray icon.

Sets when the tray’s icon background becomes highlighted (in blue).

Note: You can use highlightMode with a BrowserWindow by toggling between 'never' and 'always' modes when the window visibility changes.

const {BrowserWindow, Tray} = require('electron')

const win = new BrowserWindow({width: 800, height: 600})
const tray = new Tray('/path/to/my/icon')

tray.on('click', () => {
  win.isVisible() ? win.hide() : win.show()
})
win.on('show', () => {
  tray.setHighlightMode('always')
})
win.on('hide', () => {
  tray.setHighlightMode('never')
})

tray.displayBalloon(options) Windows

• options Object
  • icon (NativeImage | String) - (optional)
  • title String - (optional)
  • content String - (optional)

Displays a tray balloon.

tray.popUpContextMenu([menu, position]) macOS Windows

• menu Menu (optional)
• position Point (optional) - The pop up position.

Pops up the context menu of the tray icon. When menu is passed, the menu will be shown instead of the tray icon’s context menu.

The position is only available on Windows, and it is (0, 0) by default.

tray.setContextMenu(menu)

• menu Menu

Sets the context menu for this icon.

tray.getBounds() macOS Windows

Returns Rectangle

The bounds of this tray icon as Object.

tray.isDestroyed()

Returns Boolean - Whether the tray icon is destroyed.