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Add items to the Windows jump list

A jump list is the shortcut menu that Windows displays when a user right-clicks your app's icon on the taskbar or in the Start menu. You can populate the jump list with tasks — quick app-wide actions such as composing a new message or opening settings — and with custom groups of items such as recent projects or pinned documents.

Open the WinUI Gallery app and see JumpList in action

Important

The JumpList API requires package identity. It works in packaged (MSIX) apps and apps packaged with external location, but is not available in unpackaged apps.

Prerequisites

Load the current jump list

Before you add or remove items, load the app's current jump list by calling JumpList.LoadCurrentAsync:

using Windows.UI.StartScreen;

var jumpList = await JumpList.LoadCurrentAsync();

Add tasks

Tasks are items with an empty GroupName property. Windows places them in a built-in Tasks section at the bottom of the jump list. Use tasks for common actions that are always relevant regardless of context.

Create a task with JumpListItem.CreateWithArguments, add it to the Items collection, and then save by calling JumpList.SaveAsync. When the user selects the task, Windows launches your app with the argument string you supplied, which you can read from the activation arguments at startup.

var jumpList = await JumpList.LoadCurrentAsync();

var task = JumpListItem.CreateWithArguments("/compose", "New Message");
task.Description = "Compose a new message";
task.Logo = new Uri("ms-appx:///Assets/Tiles/AppList.targetsize-48.png");

jumpList.Items.Add(task);
await jumpList.SaveAsync();

Add items to a custom group

Custom groups let you organize related items under a named heading. Set the GroupName property to a non-empty string; all items sharing the same GroupName appear together under that heading.

var jumpList = await JumpList.LoadCurrentAsync();

var item = JumpListItem.CreateWithArguments("/project-alpha", "Project Alpha");
item.GroupName = "Projects";
item.Description = "Open Project Alpha";
item.Logo = new Uri("ms-appx:///Assets/Tiles/AppList.targetsize-48.png");

jumpList.Items.Add(item);
await jumpList.SaveAsync();

Clear all items

To remove all items you have added, clear the Items collection before saving:

var jumpList = await JumpList.LoadCurrentAsync();
jumpList.Items.Clear();
await jumpList.SaveAsync();

Windows preserves the system-managed sections (such as Recent and Frequent) regardless of this call; only your custom tasks and groups are cleared.

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