# Accessibility

Accessibility concerns in Electron applications are similar to those of
websites because they're both ultimately HTML.

## Manually enabling accessibility features

Electron applications will automatically enable accessibility features in the
presence of assistive technology (e.g. [JAWS](https://www.freedomscientific.com/products/software/jaws/)
on Windows or [VoiceOver](https://help.apple.com/voiceover/mac/10.15/) on macOS).
See Chrome's [accessibility documentation][a11y-docs] for more details.

You can also manually toggle these features either within your Electron application
or by setting flags in third-party native software.

### Using Electron's API

By using the [`app.setAccessibilitySupportEnabled(enabled)`][setAccessibilitySupportEnabled]
API, you can manually expose Chrome's accessibility tree to users in the application preferences.
Note that the user's system assistive utilities have priority over this setting and
will override it.

### Within third-party software

#### macOS

On macOS, third-party assistive technology can toggle accessibility features inside
Electron applications by setting the `AXManualAccessibility` attribute
programmatically:

Using Objective-C:

```objc
CFStringRef kAXManualAccessibility = CFSTR("AXManualAccessibility");

+ (void)enableAccessibility:(BOOL)enable inElectronApplication:(NSRunningApplication *)app
{
    AXUIElementRef appRef = AXUIElementCreateApplication(app.processIdentifier);
    if (appRef == nil)
        return;

    CFBooleanRef value = enable ? kCFBooleanTrue : kCFBooleanFalse;
    AXUIElementSetAttributeValue(appRef, kAXManualAccessibility, value);
    CFRelease(appRef);
}
```

Using Swift:

```swift
import Cocoa
let name = CommandLine.arguments.count >= 2 ? CommandLine.arguments[1] : "Electron"
let pid = NSWorkspace.shared.runningApplications.first(where: {$0.localizedName == name})!.processIdentifier
let axApp = AXUIElementCreateApplication(pid)
let result = AXUIElementSetAttributeValue(axApp, "AXManualAccessibility" as CFString, true as CFTypeRef)
print("Setting 'AXManualAccessibility' \(error.rawValue == 0 ? "succeeded" : "failed")")
```

[a11y-docs]: https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/accessibility#TOC-How-Chrome-detects-the-presence-of-Assistive-Technology
[setAccessibilitySupportEnabled]: ../api/app.md#appsetaccessibilitysupportenabledenabled-macos-windows