TrayButton for WhatsApp (formerly WhatsTrayButton)

The official desktop solution for WhatsApp is an interesting one to say the least. While it will enable you to message your contacts and keep the conversation going, some users feel that a lot of obvious is somehow vacant, such as how the app handles notifications in the system tray.

Luckily, third-party developers have been hard at work to create something to fix this problem. TrayButton for WhatsApp (WhatsTrayButton) is a simple tool that can send WhatsApp to the system tray, letting you see any notifications more easily, so you won’t need to boot up the app each time to check for new messages.

Before starting, it’s worth noting that the tool has been made to work with the newly-released UWP version of WhatsApp, which somehow does not allow one to minimize the app to the system tray and restore it from there. This solution addresses that in a very intuitive, set-and-forget manner, which can be of great use to many.

In short, upon booting up the tool for the first time, it’ll start looking to check if WhatsApp is installed on your machine. This should be a fairly quick process, which will then allow you to take advantage of the program’s functions.

Besides displaying that you have a notification via the icon, the tool can also show any missed WhatsApp events. This comes at a somewhat higher CPU usage cost, but most modern systems shouldn’t have a problem.

Some usability improvements can be toggled by the end user. For instance, you can have the tool automatically show the WhatsApp interface when you get a new message or call. Another possibility is to hide WhatsApp when single or double-clicking it, as well as hide it completely upon clicking its tray icon.

TrayButton for WhatsApp delivers on its promise: providing the user with a usable and somewhat configurable tray icon for the popular chatting app.