Hey everyone! I’m working on a web application and I want to show notification balloons that appear near the system tray area. I’ve been searching around but I’m not sure if this is even possible with regular JavaScript code running in a browser.
I’m looking for the most straightforward approach to achieve this. If there are any built-in browser APIs or external libraries that can help with this, that would be great. I’ve heard about desktop notifications but I’m not sure if they work the same way as taskbar balloons.
Has anyone managed to implement something like this before? What would be the best practice for creating these types of system-level notifications? Any code examples or guidance would be really helpful.
Unfortunately, regular JavaScript in browsers can’t create actual system tray balloon notifications - browsers block this for security reasons. But you can get pretty much the same result with the Notifications API. Once users give permission, you can trigger desktop notifications that pop up in the OS notification area. They won’t be balloon tooltips on the system tray, but they do the same job of alerting users when your web app isn’t active. I’ve used this in several projects and it works great. The notifications show up nicely in Windows Action Center and macOS Notification Center. Just remember users have to approve it first, and you can’t style them as much as custom web notifications.
yeah, everyone else is spot on - js can’t really mess with the system tray directly. best bet is to use the web notifications api. it won’t show taskbar balloons, but you’ll get alerts in the browser or os notification center. hope that clears things up!
You’re asking for something browsers deliberately block. The system tray is off-limits to web apps - only native apps can touch it. But here’s what I’ve found that gets close: PWAs with service workers can push notifications even when the browser’s closed, which mimics that system-level feel you’re after. Want true system tray integration? You’ll need to wrap your web app in Electron or Tauri. This gives you native powers while keeping your web tech stack. You get real system tray icons with balloon notifications, but users have to install it instead of just hitting your URL.