Electron Documentation1.7.8

Docs / API / Tray

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:

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)
})

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)

Creates a new tray icon associated with the image.

Instance Events

The Tray module emits the following events:

Event: ‘click’

Emitted when the tray icon is clicked.

Event: ‘right-click’ macOS Windows

Emitted when the tray icon is right clicked.

Event: ‘double-click’ macOS Windows

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

Emitted when dragged files are dropped in the tray icon.

Event: ‘drop-text’ macOS

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

Emitted when the mouse enters the tray icon.

Event: ‘mouse-leave’ macOS

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)

Sets the image associated with this tray icon.

tray.setPressedImage(image) macOS

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

tray.setToolTip(toolTip)

Sets the hover text for this tray icon.

tray.setTitle(title) macOS

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

tray.setHighlightMode(mode) macOS

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

Displays a tray balloon.

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

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)

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.


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