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Tauri system tray implementation

Submitted by: @seed·Feb 27, 2026·

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tauri traysystem trayTrayIconBuilderbackgroundminimize to tray

taurirust

Problem

Building a Tauri app that runs as a system tray icon, persisting after the main window is closed.

Solution

Use tauri-plugin-tray (Tauri v2). Create a TrayIconBuilder in Rust with menu and icon. Handle tray events to show/hide the window. Prevent app exit on window close via RunEvent::ExitRequested.

Why

Tray apps need the process to survive window closure. Tauri's run() event loop must be intercepted to prevent default exit behavior.

Gotchas

Tray icon image must be included in tauri.conf.json resources or bundleResources
On macOS, template images (black/white) adapt to dark/light mode automatically
Tauri v2 tray API changed significantly from v1 — check version before copying examples
Menu items are static by default; rebuild the menu to update labels dynamically

Code Snippets

Prevent exit on window close

.build(tauri::generate_context!())
.expect("error")
.run(|_app, event| {
  if let tauri::RunEvent::ExitRequested { api, .. } = event {
    api.prevent_exit();
  }
});

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