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Electron 15.0.0

· 4 min read

Electron 15.0.0 has been released! It includes upgrades to Chromium 94, V8 9.4, and Node.js 16.5.0. We've added API updates to window.open, bug fixes, and general improvements. Read below for more details!


The Electron team is excited to announce the release of Electron 15.0.0! You can install it with npm via npm install electron@latest or download it from our releases website. Continue reading for details about this release and please share any feedback you have!

Notable Changes

Electron Release Cadence Change

Starting with Electron 15, Electron will release a new major stable version every 8 weeks. You can read the full details here.

Additionally, Electron will be changing supported versions from latest three versions to latest four versions until May 2022. See our versioning documentfor more detailed information about versioning in Electron.

Stack Changes

Highlight Features

  • nativeWindowOpen: true is no longer experimental, and is now the default.
  • Added safeStorage string encryption API. #30430
  • Added 'frame-created' event to WebContents which emits when a frame is created in the page. #30801
  • Added resize edge info to BrowserWindow's will-resize event. #29199

See the 15.0.0 release notes for a full list of new features and changes.

Breaking Changes

Below are breaking changes introduced in Electron 15. More information about these and future changes can be found on the Planned Breaking Changes page.

Default Changed: nativeWindowOpen defaults to true

Prior to Electron 15, window.open was by default shimmed to use BrowserWindowProxy. This meant that window.open('about:blank') did not work to open synchronously scriptable child windows, among other incompatibilities. nativeWindowOpen: true is no longer experimental, and is now the default.

See the documentation for window.open in Electron for more details.

API Changes

  • Added 'frame-created' event to WebContents which emits when a frame is created in the page. #30801
  • Added safeStorage string encryption API. #30430
  • Added signal option to dialog.showMessageBox. #26102
  • Added an Electron Fuse for enforcing code signatures on the app.asar file your application loads. Requires the latest asar module (v3.1.0 or higher). #30900
  • Added fuses to disable NODE_OPTIONS and --inspect debug arguments in packaged apps. #30420
  • Added new MenuItem.userAccelerator property to read user-assigned macOS accelerator overrides. #26682
  • Added new app.runningUnderARM64Translation property to detect when running under Rosetta on Apple Silicon, or WOW on Windows for ARM. #29168
  • Added new imageAnimationPolicy web preference to control how images are animated. #29095
  • Added support for sending Blobs over the context bridge. #29247

Removed/Deprecated Changes

No APIs have been removed or deprecated.

Supported Versions

Starting in Electron 15, we will change supported versions from latest three versions to latest four versions until May 2022 with Electron 19. After Electron 19, we will return to supporting the latest three versions. This version support change is part of our new cadence change. Please see our blog post for full details here.

Developers and applications are encouraged to upgrade to a newer version of Electron.

E15 (Sep'21)E16 (Nov'21)E17 (Feb'22)E18 (Mar'22)E19 (May'22)
15.x.y16.x.y17.x.y18.x.y19.x.y
14.x.y15.x.y16.x.y17.x.y18.x.y
13.x.y14.x.y15.x.y16.x.y17.x.y
12.x.y13.x.y14.x.y15.x.y--

What's Next

In the short term, you can expect the team to continue to focus on keeping up with the development of the major components that make up Electron, including Chromium, Node, and V8. Although we are careful not to make promises about release dates, our plan is release new major versions of Electron with new versions of those components approximately quarterly.

You can find Electron's public timeline here.

More information about future changes can be found on the Planned Breaking Changes page.