TrayIcon

The TrayIcon control lets your Avalonia application display an icon and a native menu in the system tray (notification area). It is supported on Windows, macOS, and some Linux distributions (confirmed to work on Ubuntu).

You define tray icons in your App.axaml file using the TrayIcon.Icons attached property on the Application element.

Useful properties

You will probably use these properties most often:

Property	Type	Description
Icon	WindowIcon	The icon to display in the system tray. Typically loaded from your application assets.
ToolTipText	string	Tooltip text displayed when the user hovers over the tray icon.
IsVisible	bool	Controls whether the tray icon is shown. Default is true.
Command	ICommand	The command to execute when the user clicks the tray icon.
CommandParameter	object	The parameter to pass to the Command.
Menu	NativeMenu	The native menu control attached to the tray icon.

info

You must use a NativeMenu with the tray icon, not the Avalonia Menu control. For full details about native menus, see the NativeMenu reference.

Example

This example defines a simple tray icon with a nested menu in the App.axaml file:

App.axaml

<Application xmlns="https://github.com/avaloniaui"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
             x:Class="MyApplication.App">
  <TrayIcon.Icons>
    <TrayIcons>
      <TrayIcon Icon="/Assets/avalonia-logo.ico"
                ToolTipText="Avalonia Tray Icon ToolTip">
        <TrayIcon.Menu>
          <NativeMenu>
            <NativeMenuItem Header="Settings">
              <NativeMenu>
                <NativeMenuItem Header="Option 1" />
                <NativeMenuItem Header="Option 2" />
                <NativeMenuItemSeparator />
                <NativeMenuItem Header="Option 3" />
              </NativeMenu>
            </NativeMenuItem>
          </NativeMenu>
        </TrayIcon.Menu>
      </TrayIcon>
    </TrayIcons>
  </TrayIcon.Icons>
</Application>

Include the .ico file in your .csproj file as an AvaloniaResource:

MyApplication.csproj

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <ItemGroup>
    <AvaloniaResource Include="Assets/avalonia-logo.ico" />
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

Binding menu commands

You can bind tray menu item commands to a view model. The Command on the TrayIcon itself fires when the user clicks the icon directly, while each NativeMenuItem can have its own Command:

App.axaml

<TrayIcon Icon="/Assets/app-icon.ico"
          ToolTipText="My Application"
          Command="{Binding ShowWindowCommand}">
    <TrayIcon.Menu>
        <NativeMenu>
            <NativeMenuItem Header="Show" Command="{Binding ShowWindowCommand}" />
            <NativeMenuItem Header="Settings" Command="{Binding OpenSettingsCommand}" />
            <NativeMenuItemSeparator />
            <NativeMenuItem Header="Quit" Command="{Binding QuitCommand}" />
        </NativeMenu>
    </TrayIcon.Menu>
</TrayIcon>

tip

To bind commands to a view model, set the DataContext on your Application object or use a compiled binding with x:DataType so the tray icon can resolve the binding path.

Showing and hiding the tray icon

You can toggle tray icon visibility at runtime by binding the IsVisible property. This is useful when your application minimizes to the tray:

App.axaml

<TrayIcon Icon="/Assets/app-icon.ico"
          IsVisible="{Binding IsMinimizedToTray}"
          ToolTipText="My Application" />

Practical notes

• The TrayIcon is defined at the Application level, not inside a Window. It persists regardless of which windows are open.
• On macOS, clicking the tray icon shows the menu. On Windows, right-clicking shows the menu and left-clicking fires the Command.
• You can define multiple TrayIcon elements inside a single TrayIcons collection if your application requires more than one tray icon.
• If the tray icon does not appear on Linux, verify that your desktop environment supports StatusNotifierItem or AppIndicator. GNOME users may need the AppIndicator extension.

Platform support

Platform	Support
Windows	Full support
macOS	Full support
Linux	Works on distributions with StatusNotifierItem or AppIndicator support (confirmed on Ubuntu)

See also

• NativeMenu
• Window
• TrayIcon source code (GitHub)