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By default, the Signal snap version has the tray icon enabled, and is very, very convenient if you just want to keep Signal running in the background just in case of.

However, snaps are being notorious for their slowness and from the bad practices of Ubuntu's parent company, Canonical. This is why many choose to ditch snaps entirely, like me, and to either use Flatpak/Flathub, AppImages or bare metal deb files.

Personally, I use the flatpak version of Signal, which doesn't have this functionality enabled, so I've been searching for a solution and looks like I've found it! I'll be telling you what to do, to have your Signal app showing up on tray.

Steps:

1. Download Flatseal, which is really useful, not only for this process, but for managing flatpak apps' permissions.
2. In Flatseal, look for the Signal application and scroll down until you see the Environment menu.
3. Under Environment, you'll see a Variables submenu
4. In the Variables submenu, change the following output to enable tray:

SIGNAL_USE_TRAY_ICON=0

change it to

SIGNAL_USE_TRAY_ICON=1

Additional steps:

• If you want Signal right at the launch to start in tray mode, hidden from you, change this as well:

SIGNAL_START_IN_TRAY=0

change to

SIGNAL_START_IN_TRAY=1

Thanks for reading, and hope this tip helps you.