---
title: Events
---

The Tauri event system is a multi-producer multi-consumer communication primitive that allows message passing between the frontend and the backend.
It is analogous to the command system, but payload type check must be written on the event handler and it simplifies communication from the backend to the frontend, working like a channel.

A Tauri application can listen and emit to global and window-specific events. Usage from the frontend and the backend are described below.

## Frontend

The event system is accessible on the frontend on the `event` and `window` modules of the `@tauri-apps/api` package.

### Global events

To use the global event channel, import the `event` module and use the `emit` and `listen` functions:

```ts
import { emit, listen } from '@tauri-apps/api/event'

// listen to the `click` event and get a function to remove the event listener
// there's also a `once` function that subscribes to an event and automatically unsubscribes the listener on the first event
const unlisten = await listen('click', event => {
  // event.event is the event name (useful if you want to use a single callback fn for multiple event types)
  // event.payload is the payload object
})

// emits the `click` event with the object payload
emit('click', {
  theMessage: 'Tauri is awesome!'
})
```

### Window-specific events

Window-specific events are exposed on the `window` module.

```ts
import { appWindow, WebviewWindow } from '@tauri-apps/api/window'

// emit an event that are only visible to the current window
appWindow.emit('event', { message: 'Tauri is awesome!' })

// create a new webview window and emit an event only to that window
const webview = new WebviewWindow('window')
webview.emit('event')

```

## Backend

On the backend, the global event channel is exposed on the `App` struct, and window-specific events can be emitted using the `Window` trait.

### Global events

```rust
use tauri::Manager;

// the payload type must implement `Serialize`.
// for global events, it also must implement `Clone`.
#[derive(Clone, serde::Serialize)]
struct Payload {
  message: String,
}

fn main() {
  tauri::Builder::default()
    .setup(|app| {
      // listen to the `event-name` (emitted on any window)
      let id = app.listen_global("event-name", |event| {
        println!("got event-name with payload {:?}", event.payload());
      });
      // unlisten to the event using the `id` returned on the `listen_global` function
      // an `once_global` API is also exposed on the `App` struct
      app.unlisten(id);

      // emit the `event-name` event to all webview windows on the frontend
      app.emit_all("event-name", Payload { message: "Tauri is awesome!".into() }).unwrap();
      Ok(())
    })
    .run(tauri::generate_context!())
    .expect("failed to run app");
}
```

### Window-specific events

To use the window-specific event channel, a `Window` object can be obtained on a command handler or with the `get_window` function:

```rust
use tauri::{Manager, Window};

// the payload type must implement `Serialize`.
#[derive(serde::Serialize)]
struct Payload {
  message: String,
}

// init a background process on the command, and emit periodic events only to the window that used the command
#[tauri::command]
fn init_process(window: Window) {
  std::thread::spawn(move || {
    loop {
      window.emit("event-name", Payload { message: "Tauri is awesome!".into() }).unwrap();
    }
  });
}

fn main() {
  tauri::Builder::default()
    .setup(|app| {
      // `main` here is the window label; it is defined on the window creation or under `tauri.conf.json`
      // the default value is `main`. note that it must be unique
      let main_window = app.get_window("main").unwrap();

      // listen to the `event-name` (emitted on the `main` window)
      let id = main_window.listen("event-name", |event| {
        println!("got window event-name with payload {:?}", event.payload());
      });
      // unlisten to the event using the `id` returned on the `listen` function
      // an `once` API is also exposed on the `Window` struct
      main_window.unlisten(id);

      // emit the `event-name` event to the `main` window
      main_window.emit("event-name", Payload { message: "Tauri is awesome!".into() }).unwrap();
      Ok(())
    })
    .invoke_handler(tauri::generate_handler![init_process])
    .run(tauri::generate_context!())
    .expect("failed to run app");
}
```