Environment Variables

Control application configuration and behavior without changing code.

Certain Electron behaviors are controlled by environment variables because they are initialized earlier than the command line flags and the app’s code.

POSIX shell example:

  1. $ export ELECTRON_ENABLE_LOGGING=true
  2. $ electron

Windows console example:

  1. > set ELECTRON_ENABLE_LOGGING=true
  2. > electron

Production Variables

The following environment variables are intended primarily for use at runtime in packaged Electron applications.

NODE_OPTIONS

Electron includes support for a subset of Node’s NODE_OPTIONS. The majority are supported with the exception of those which conflict with Chromium’s use of BoringSSL.

Example:

  1. export NODE_OPTIONS="--no-warnings --max-old-space-size=2048"

Unsupported options are:

  1. --use-bundled-ca
  2. --force-fips
  3. --enable-fips
  4. --openssl-config
  5. --use-openssl-ca

NODE_OPTIONS are explicitly disallowed in packaged apps, except for the following:

  1. --max-http-header-size
  2. --http-parser

GOOGLE_API_KEY

Geolocation support in Electron requires the use of Google Cloud Platform’s geolocation webservice. To enable this feature, acquire a Google API key and place the following code in your main process file, before opening any browser windows that will make geolocation requests:

  1. process.env.GOOGLE_API_KEY = 'YOUR_KEY_HERE'

By default, a newly generated Google API key may not be allowed to make geolocation requests. To enable the geolocation webservice for your project, enable it through the API library.

N.B. You will need to add a Billing Account to the project associated to the API key for the geolocation webservice to work.

ELECTRON_NO_ASAR

Disables ASAR support. This variable is only supported in forked child processes and spawned child processes that set ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE.

ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE

Starts the process as a normal Node.js process.

In this mode, you will be able to pass cli options to Node.js as you would when running the normal Node.js executable, with the exception of the following flags:

  • “—openssl-config”
  • “—use-bundled-ca”
  • “—use-openssl-ca”,
  • “—force-fips”
  • “—enable-fips”

These flags are disabled owing to the fact that Electron uses BoringSSL instead of OpenSSL when building Node.js’ crypto module, and so will not work as designed.

ELECTRON_NO_ATTACH_CONSOLE Windows

Don’t attach to the current console session.

ELECTRON_FORCE_WINDOW_MENU_BAR Linux

Don’t use the global menu bar on Linux.

ELECTRON_TRASH Linux

Set the trash implementation on Linux. Default is gio.

Options:

  • gvfs-trash
  • trash-cli
  • kioclient5
  • kioclient

Development Variables

The following environment variables are intended primarily for development and debugging purposes.

ELECTRON_ENABLE_LOGGING

Prints Chromium’s internal logging to the console.

Setting this variable is the same as passing --enable-logging on the command line. For more info, see --enable-logging in command-line switches.

ELECTRON_LOG_FILE

Sets the file destination for Chromium’s internal logging.

Setting this variable is the same as passing --log-file on the command line. For more info, see --log-file in command-line switches.

ELECTRON_DEBUG_DRAG_REGIONS

Adds coloration to draggable regions on BrowserViews on macOS - draggable regions will be colored green and non-draggable regions will be colored red to aid debugging.

ELECTRON_DEBUG_NOTIFICATIONS

Adds extra logs to Notification lifecycles on macOS to aid in debugging. Extra logging will be displayed when new Notifications are created or activated. They will also be displayed when common a tions are taken: a notification is shown, dismissed, its button is clicked, or it is replied to.

Sample output:

  1. Notification created (com.github.Electron:notification:EAF7B87C-A113-43D7-8E76-F88EC9D73D44)
  2. Notification displayed (com.github.Electron:notification:EAF7B87C-A113-43D7-8E76-F88EC9D73D44)
  3. Notification activated (com.github.Electron:notification:EAF7B87C-A113-43D7-8E76-F88EC9D73D44)
  4. Notification replied to (com.github.Electron:notification:EAF7B87C-A113-43D7-8E76-F88EC9D73D44)

ELECTRON_LOG_ASAR_READS

When Electron reads from an ASAR file, log the read offset and file path to the system tmpdir. The resulting file can be provided to the ASAR module to optimize file ordering.

ELECTRON_ENABLE_STACK_DUMPING

Prints the stack trace to the console when Electron crashes.

This environment variable will not work if the crashReporter is started.

ELECTRON_DEFAULT_ERROR_MODE Windows

Shows the Windows’s crash dialog when Electron crashes.

This environment variable will not work if the crashReporter is started.

ELECTRON_OVERRIDE_DIST_PATH

When running from the electron package, this variable tells the electron command to use the specified build of Electron instead of the one downloaded by npm install. Usage:

  1. export ELECTRON_OVERRIDE_DIST_PATH=/Users/username/projects/electron/out/Testing

Set By Electron

Electron sets some variables in your environment at runtime.

ORIGINAL_XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP

This variable is set to the value of XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP that your application originally launched with. Electron sometimes modifies the value of XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP to affect other logic within Chromium so if you want access to the original value you should look up this environment variable instead.