Tauri v2 — Frameless Windows + Custom Titlebars

The native OS chrome is one DOM element you don’t control. Turn it off, draw your own, and you own everything from the traffic lights to the menu bar to the window-snap affordances. The cost: you re-implement drag, double-click-maximize, and platform conventions. This skill walks the full setup.

See [[tauri-windows]] for the top-level overview and [[tauri-security]] for the capability model.

Step 1 — disable native decorations

{
  "app": {
    "windows": [
      {
        "label": "main",
        "decorations": false,
        "title": "My App",
        "width": 1000,
        "height": 700
      }
    ]
  }
}

With decorations: false, the OS draws nothing — no titlebar, no border, no close button. Your HTML covers the entire window surface.

Step 2 — draw the titlebar in HTML

The titlebar is just a fixed-position <div> at the top of your page. The drag region is declared via attribute, not JS:

<div class="titlebar" data-tauri-drag-region>
  <div class="titlebar-title" data-tauri-drag-region>My App</div>
  <div class="titlebar-controls">
    <button id="titlebar-minimize" aria-label="minimize">…</button>
    <button id="titlebar-maximize" aria-label="maximize">…</button>
    <button id="titlebar-close"    aria-label="close">…</button>
  </div>
</div>

data-tauri-drag-region makes that element a draggable handle for the window. Tauri intercepts mousedown on the element and calls startDragging() natively; double-click toggles maximize automatically (on supporting platforms). Children that aren’t themselves dragged (e.g. buttons, inputs) still receive their own events — only elements with the attribute drag.

See templates/titlebar.html for a complete drop-in.

Step 3 — style it

Three rules that bite: user-select: none (otherwise drag selects text), -webkit-app-region: drag (not needed if you use the data attribute, but useful on legacy WebKit), and a fixed height that matches your control buttons. See templates/titlebar.css.

Step 4 — wire button clicks

import { getCurrentWindow } from '@tauri-apps/api/window';

const appWindow = getCurrentWindow();

document.getElementById('titlebar-minimize')!
  .addEventListener('click', () => appWindow.minimize());
document.getElementById('titlebar-maximize')!
  .addEventListener('click', () => appWindow.toggleMaximize());
document.getElementById('titlebar-close')!
  .addEventListener('click', () => appWindow.close());

getCurrentWindow() returns the Window for the current webview — works in every window including child windows. See templates/titlebar.ts.

Step 5 — grant capabilities

Every window method is a separate permission. Default capabilities omit allow-start-dragging for safety, so you must add it explicitly:

{
  "$schema": "../gen/schemas/desktop-schema.json",
  "identifier": "default",
  "windows": ["main"],
  "permissions": [
    "core:default",
    "core:window:default",
    "core:window:allow-start-dragging",
    "core:window:allow-minimize",
    "core:window:allow-toggle-maximize",
    "core:window:allow-close",
    "core:window:allow-internal-toggle-maximize"
  ]
}

Without allow-start-dragging, the drag region is inert. Without allow-internal-toggle-maximize, double-click-to-maximize fails silently on Windows snap-layout hover (see platform notes).

Manual drag (if you need conditional drag)

Skip the attribute and call the API yourself:

document.getElementById('titlebar')!.addEventListener('mousedown', (e) => {
  if (e.buttons !== 1) return;  // left button only
  if (e.detail === 2) {
    appWindow.toggleMaximize();
  } else {
    appWindow.startDragging();
  }
});

Useful when only part of a region should drag (e.g. a sidebar header that drags except when clicking the collapse caret).

Platform differences

Concern	macOS	Windows	Linux (GTK)
Traffic-light placement	Top-left, OS-drawn even with decorations:false if you set titleBarStyle: "Overlay"	Top-right, you draw them	Top-right, you draw them
Snap layouts (Win11 hover-maximize-button)	n/a	Needs allow-internal-toggle-maximize so Tauri intercepts the system-internal toggle	n/a
Double-click-to-maximize on drag region	Free with data-tauri-drag-region	Free with data-tauri-drag-region + allow-internal-toggle-maximize	Free
Window shadow on transparent window	Native	Loses shadow without decorations	DE-dependent
traffic_light_position (Rust builder)	Available — move buttons inset to align with custom titlebar height	n/a	n/a

For macOS, the cleanest approach is a transparent native titlebar overlaying your HTML — set title_bar_style(TitleBarStyle::Overlay) and inset your content. This keeps native traffic lights with their accessibility behaviors intact while still letting you draw a custom area beside them.

Windows 11 snap layouts

The “hover the maximize button to see snap options” gesture is implemented by the OS sending a WM_NCHITTEST that resolves to HTMAXBUTTON. Tauri’s allow-internal-toggle-maximize lets your maximize button report itself as the system maximize button so the OS shows the snap menu on hover. Without it, Win11 users lose snap layouts on your app — a regression they’ll notice.

Common pitfalls

• Buttons inside data-tauri-drag-region: the drag swallows the click. Put buttons in a sibling without the attribute.
• Forgetting user-select: none: triple-clicking the titlebar selects text instead of dragging.
• allow-start-dragging missing: drag silently no-ops. Look at devtools console for the “not allowed” error.
• overflow: hidden on <html> + transparent corner radius: Windows clips before the corner round, leaving a square shadow. Use border-radius on <body> + transparent: true on the window.
• Touch devices: data-tauri-drag-region works with pointerdown, but you may want touch-action: none to stop pull-to-refresh on the titlebar.

Templates

• templates/titlebar.html — drop-in markup with traffic-light SVGs.
• templates/titlebar.css — minimal styling, 30px height, hover states.
• templates/titlebar.ts — button wiring + manual-drag fallback.

See also

• [[tauri-windows]] — parent skill
• [[tauri-windows-transparency-vibrancy]] — for the “no decorations + transparent + vibrant” combo
• [[tauri-security]] — capability files in depth