Linux systray application

Linux systray application is currently in private alpha. Therefore, this topic is currently hidden.

Starting with Tailscale v1.87.40, unstable builds of the Linux client include a systray application that provides quick access to common actions like fast user switching and exit node selection. Start the systray app from the command line by running:

tailscale systray

Supported desktop environments

The systray application should work on any Linux distribution that includes D-Bus, and a desktop environment that supports the StatusNotifierItem specification. This includes recent versions of GNOME (with a third-party extension, refer to notes below), KDE Plasma, and COSMIC, as well as Wayland bars such as waybar and hyprpanel, amongst others.

GNOME

GNOME does not have a native system tray implementation, so you will need to install the AppIndicator Support extension to use the Tailscale systray application.

On Ubuntu, this extension comes installed as the apt package gnome-shell-extension-appindicator. You do not need to install the extension manually, however if you do, you might need to remove the apt package first.

Clipboard support

Integration with the system clipboard requires a utility such as xsel, xclip or wl-clipboard to be installed.

Known limitations

The COSMIC desktop runs the systray application, but displays profile images at their full size, which may be too large for the menu.
XFCE is currently not supported. xfce-panel does support the StatusNotifierItem specification, so this is likely solvable.
GNOME limits the depth of sub-menus in sytray applications. Therefore selecting a Mullvad exit node is limited to country selection, and does not allow selecting individual cities.

Launch on startup

The systray application can install a systemd user service to launch on startup by running:

tailscale configure systray --enable-startup=systemd

For other init systems, call tailscale systray in the appropriate startup scripts.

Operating systems other than Linux

The systray application is currently only supported on Linux, and is therefore only bundled in the Linux client. It does run on other operating systems, including macOS and Windows, but some features like desktop notifications may be missing. If you want to try it on an unsupported operating system, you can build the application from source and run it using:

go run tailscale.com/cmd/systray@latest

Last updated Aug 20, 2025