If you can guarantee windows and you do not want to introduce the heavy dependencies of wx, you can do this with the pywin32 extensions.

Also see this question.

An alternative if you are trying to run a python based program in the background you can run it as a service. Check out this active state recipe its pretty useful. I believe one of the options is to convert your application to exe with py2exe or pyinstall.

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/551780/

For Ubuntu

class TrayIcon:
    def init():


iconPath = {"Windows":os.path.expandvars("%PROGRAMFILES%/MyProgram/icon.png"),
                  "Linux":"/usr/share/icons/myprogramicon.png"}        
    if platform.system()=="Linux":
        import gtk
        import appindicator # Ubuntu apt-get install python-appindicator 

    # Create an application indicator
    try:
        gtk.gdk.threads_init()
        gtk.threads_enter()
        icon = iconPath[platform.system()]
        indicator = appindicator.Indicator("example-simple-client", "indicator-messages", appindicator.CATEGORY_APPLICATION_STATUS)
        indicator.set_icon(icon)
        indicator.set_status (appindicator.STATUS_ACTIVE)
        indicator.set_attention_icon ("indicator-messages-new")
        menu = gtk.Menu()

        menuTitle = "Quit"   
        menu_items = gtk.MenuItem(menuTitle)
        menu.append(menu_items)
        menu_items.connect("activate", TrayIcon.QuitApp, menuTitle)
        menu_items.show()

        menuTitle = "About My Program"
        menu_items = gtk.MenuItem(menuTitle)
        menu.append(menu_items)
        menu_items.connect("activate", TrayIcon.AboutApp, menuTitle)
        menu_items.show()   

        indicator.set_menu(menu)    
    except:
        pass

    # Run the app indicator on the main thread.
    try:

        t = threading.Thread(target=gtk.main)
        t.daemon = True # this means it'll die when the program dies.
        t.start()
        #gtk.main()

    except:
        pass
    finally:
        gtk.threads_leave()     

@staticmethod
def AboutApp(a1,a2):
    gtk.threads_enter()
    dialog = gtk.Dialog("About",
                        None,
                        gtk.DIALOG_MODAL | gtk.DIALOG_DESTROY_WITH_PARENT,
                        (gtk.STOCK_OK, gtk.RESPONSE_ACCEPT))
    label = gtk.Label("My Program v0.0.1, (C)opyright ME 2015. All rights reserved.")
    dialog.vbox.pack_start(label)
    label.show()
    label2 = gtk.Label("example.comnnFor more support contact [email protected]")
    label2.show()
    dialog.action_area.pack_end(label2)
    response = dialog.run()
    dialog.destroy()
    gtk.threads_leave()

@staticmethod
def QuitApp(a1, a2):
    sys.exit(0)

Cross-Platform

See PyQt: Show menu in a system tray application

wx.PySimpleApp deprecated, here’s how to use wx.App instead

Took me while to figure this out so I thought I’d share. wx.PySimpleApp is deprecated in wxPython 2.9 and beyond. Here’s FogleBird’s original script using wx.App instead.

import wx

TRAY_TOOLTIP = 'System Tray Demo'
TRAY_ICON = 'icon.png'

def create_menu_item(menu, label, func):
    item = wx.MenuItem(menu, -1, label)
    menu.Bind(wx.EVT_MENU, func, id=item.GetId())
    menu.AppendItem(item)
    return item

class TaskBarIcon(wx.TaskBarIcon):
    def __init__(self, frame):
        self.frame = frame
        super(TaskBarIcon, self).__init__()
        self.set_icon(TRAY_ICON)
        self.Bind(wx.EVT_TASKBAR_LEFT_DOWN, self.on_left_down)

    def CreatePopupMenu(self):
        menu = wx.Menu()
        create_menu_item(menu, 'Say Hello', self.on_hello)
        menu.AppendSeparator()
        create_menu_item(menu, 'Exit', self.on_exit)
        return menu

    def set_icon(self, path):
        icon = wx.IconFromBitmap(wx.Bitmap(path))
        self.SetIcon(icon, TRAY_TOOLTIP)

    def on_left_down(self, event):
        print 'Tray icon was left-clicked.'

    def on_hello(self, event):
        print 'Hello, world!'

    def on_exit(self, event):
        wx.CallAfter(self.Destroy)
        self.frame.Close()

class App(wx.App):
    def OnInit(self):
        frame=wx.Frame(None)
        self.SetTopWindow(frame)
        TaskBarIcon(frame)
        return True

def main():
    app = App(False)
    app.MainLoop()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

2018 version

import wx.adv
import wx
TRAY_TOOLTIP = 'Name' 
TRAY_ICON = 'icon.png' 


def create_menu_item(menu, label, func):
    item = wx.MenuItem(menu, -1, label)
    menu.Bind(wx.EVT_MENU, func, id=item.GetId())
    menu.Append(item)
    return item


class TaskBarIcon(wx.adv.TaskBarIcon):
    def __init__(self, frame):
        self.frame = frame
        super(TaskBarIcon, self).__init__()
        self.set_icon(TRAY_ICON)
        self.Bind(wx.adv.EVT_TASKBAR_LEFT_DOWN, self.on_left_down)

    def CreatePopupMenu(self):
        menu = wx.Menu()
        create_menu_item(menu, 'Site', self.on_hello)
        menu.AppendSeparator()
        create_menu_item(menu, 'Exit', self.on_exit)
        return menu

    def set_icon(self, path):
        icon = wx.Icon(path)
        self.SetIcon(icon, TRAY_TOOLTIP)

    def on_left_down(self, event):      
        print ('Tray icon was left-clicked.')

    def on_hello(self, event):
        print ('Hello, world!')

    def on_exit(self, event):
        wx.CallAfter(self.Destroy)
        self.frame.Close()

class App(wx.App):
    def OnInit(self):
        frame=wx.Frame(None)
        self.SetTopWindow(frame)
        TaskBarIcon(frame)
        return True

def main():
    app = App(False)
    app.MainLoop()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

For an example, refer to this thread -> wx question.

wxPython "classic" -> [new API] wxPython 'Phoenix' (Py3)

Yes. There is a cross-platform example on wiki.wxpython.org that I’ve tested with python 2.7 (minconda install) on macOS High Sierra (10.13.3), Windows 7, and gnome 3/centos7. It is here (ignore the page title):
https://wiki.wxpython.org/Custom%20Mac%20OsX%20Dock%20Bar%20Icon

Small mods are needed for python 3.6:

• you must import wx.adv
• wx.TaskBarIcon becomes wx.adv.TaskBarIcon
• wx.IconFromBitmap becomes wx.Icon

Gnome 3 required installation of TopIcons Plus.

Since you don’t want to have the window display (” no window shows up, just a tray icon”), simply comment out the following line (though you still want to keep the wx.Frame parent):

frame.Show(True)

And since you want to use your own .png icon, remove the WXPdemo image and embeddedimage stuff and replace

icon = self.MakeIcon(WXPdemo.GetImage())

with, for example

icon = wx.Icon('icon.png')

In my experience, this will provide a good start for adapting or extending further.

There is a package called pystray (bad name, just say it out loud) but works like a charm and is more lightweight than wx or Qt. These are the links:

https://pystray.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
https://pypi.org/project/pystray/