Is it possible to run activitywatch without System tray?

[ahmadxgani]

Related issue:
#258
NixOS/nixpkgs#476730

[Lopesnextgen]

Hey Ahmad,

Yes, ActivityWatch can run without a system tray

The tray application, aw-qt, is primarily a launcher and module manager. The actual tracking is performed by separate processes:

• aw-server or aw-server-rust
• aw-watcher-afk
• aw-watcher-window
• any additional watchers you use

Therefore, the solution is to avoid starting aw-qt and launch the server and watchers directly.

For a regular installation, the equivalent commands are:

aw-server
aw-watcher-afk
aw-watcher-window

Once they are running, the dashboard remains available at:

• http://localhost:5600

The warning appears because aw-qt expects a system tray. It does not necessarily mean the underlying ActivityWatch modules require one.

NixOS/Home Manager

Since the related report is from NixOS, Home Manager already provides a service module that can run ActivityWatch through systemd without aw-qt:

services.activitywatch = {
  enable = true;
  package = pkgs.aw-server-rust;

  watchers = {
    aw-watcher-afk.package = pkgs.aw-watcher-afk;
    aw-watcher-window.package = pkgs.aw-watcher-window;
  };
};

After rebuilding, the services can be inspected with:

systemctl --user status activitywatch.target
systemctl --user status activitywatch.service
systemctl --user status "activitywatch-watcher-*"

This also has an advantage over aw-qt: systemd can restart the server if it fails, and the tray icon is no longer involved.

One potential issue

The window and AFK watchers still need access to the graphical user session. If they start before X11 or Wayland is ready, they may fail because variables such as DISPLAY or WAYLAND_DISPLAY are unavailable.

If that happens, the services should be ordered after the graphical session, or the user environment should be imported into systemd. That is a separate startup-order issue, not a requirement for a tray icon.

So the short answer is: yes, running without a system tray is supported at the component level; run the server and watchers directly instead of launching aw-qt.

References:

• ActivityWatch running instructions: https://docs.activitywatch.net/en/latest/installing-from-source.html#running
• Home Manager ActivityWatch service: https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/blob/master/modules/services/activitywatch.nix