I was playing around with some settings, and now I need to reset GNOME to it's defaults - how do I do that?
9 Answers
For Unity-related configuration resetting, take a look here.
For Ubuntu 17.10 and higher, you can reset all the settings using dconf.
This command will delete your configuration files. Once it's run there is no going back!
Still with me?
GNOME 2
Run the following on a terminal or with Alt+F2:
rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity
That will remove all the GNOME 2 configuration settings. Log out, and log back in. You'll be back to a stock desktop.
You can backup before playing around with your settings in the future:
mkdir ./.old-gnome-config && mv ./.gnome* ./.old-gnome-config && mv .gconf* ./.old-gnome-config && mv ./.metacity ./.old-gnome-config
GNOME 3
If your config isn't worth saving run the following:
rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity .cache .dbus .dmrc .mission-control .thumbnails ~/.config/dconf/user ~.compiz*
To back up and reset GNOME3:
mkdir ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.gnome* ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv .gconf* ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.metacity ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.cache ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.dbus ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.dmrc ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.mission-control ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.thumbnails ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ~/.config/dconf/* ./.old-gnome-config/
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10more concise and precise to use a for loop for the backup step, e.g.
for f in .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity; do mv $f ${f}.bak; done
ormkdir -p ~/.backup-gnome-config/ && for f in .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity; do mv $f ~/.backup-gnome-config/; done
– hobsAug 13, 2012 at 1:38 -
Shorten that last bit to
mkdir ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.gnome* .gconf* ./.metacity ./.cache ./.dbus ./.dmrc ./.mission-control ./.thumbnails ~/.config/dconf/* ./.old-gnome-config/
– smac89Dec 22, 2016 at 19:08
For 17.10+
There isn't a great solution but this may do the job or most of it.
dconf reset -f /org/gnome/
Then log out/in
That command's path could be shortened if needing a more extensive reset, i.e. to just /org/ or even / but I'd go with above first.
Worst case one could also just go this in a terminal, I think it's a bit overkill as it will set all dconf (gsettings) back to defaults
mv .config/dconf/user .config/dconf/user.bak && sudo reboot
Fore me those directories were not sufficient - I had to delete ~/.config/dconf/user
as well.
This helped for me in those two cases:
- gnome-panel config broken (tried to specify location "left" for one gnome panel, it immediately crashed and could not be started afterwards)
- GTK Theme and GTK Icons broken
(nevertheless the selection via e. g.
gnome-tweak-tool
, it remained in ugly Windows-style grey look and icons were standard gnome - I have no clue how this was provoked, it appeared suddenly after login)
This corresponds to the Gnome 3 Fallback Mode I use on Linux Mint 12 Lisa (Oneiric based). But the GTK problem persisted in all other login modes as well (MATE, Gnome 3 Standard)!
I am unsure now to which mechanism the ~/.config/dconf/user
file corresponds, as I found out that in Linux Mint only _mateconf-editor_
is installed by default but outfitted with the title and icon of gconf-editor
from Natty!
After installing gconf-editor
additionally, this one is titled identically but has a different (new) icon. But don't rely on this icon stories, because this will rely on the icon theme which is Mint-X-Dark for me.
Theory says that dconf
is the successor for gconf
, but I found no information regarding the GUIs.
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1
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+1 for the info, but it'd be even better if you rewrite to incorporate your edits– djeikybJan 5, 2012 at 22:23
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This helped with the missing Lock Screen menu option (which is probably down to yet another corrupt dconf config)– prusswanNov 30, 2012 at 4:59
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1Saved my life! Spent the last two hours unable to load my Ubuntu desktop, but deleting ~/.config/dconf/user did the trick– leopldJan 9, 2015 at 14:52
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This is weird, i have to delete this file after every reboot to avoid login loop. May 4, 2018 at 16:33
If you want to reset your GNOME specific settings to default as if you had never logged in try
rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity
Resetting Gnome Extensions
If you need to remove your Gnome Extensions (I ran into this problem when trying out Ubuntu 17.10 on an upgraded system) run:
rm -rf ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
Keep in mind that this will wipe all of your extensions.
To remove an individual extension, you can navigate to ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
and look for the extension's folder, then delete it.
If you'd like to backup
To backup, run:
cp ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions-bkup
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now my extensions don't load. any fix for that? I've installed the again from the site but either all don't work or just some works– ToshoDec 25, 2017 at 2:44
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@Tosho a couple of things: 1. Did you check to see that the extensions you installed are compatible with your Gnome Shell version? 2. Have you restarted Gnome Shell or logged out + logged back in? Dec 25, 2017 at 17:05
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I've re-installed Ubuntu Gnome 17.04 keeping my using my old /home partition. Now after some cleaning, re-installs and deleting, now most of them seems to work just fine. Only few extensions got ERROR after Updating from extensions.gnome.org or they crash randomly and restart doesn't fix anything. I'll leave it like it is for now. Thanks– ToshoDec 26, 2017 at 18:09
Logout, switch to command line (Alt + Ctrl + F4), login, do:
rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity
Switch to X (Alt + Ctrl + F2, F7 on older versions).
Just like they described it here.
You can use the mv
command.
The syntax is:
mv source1 source2 source3 ... sourceN destination
In your case:
cd ~
mkdir .old-gnome-config
mv .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity .cache \
.dbus .dmrc .mission-control .thumbnails .config/dconf/user \
.compiz* .old-gnome-config/
The last one is a directory and it's the destination.
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Explanation: This is moving the old configuration to backup destination ./.old-gnome-config/ it needs to be run in the home directory. Afterwards ubuntu restores the default configuration. Oct 21, 2013 at 10:22
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Reinstalling gnome-tweak-tool
resolved this issue and after reboot the GNOME 3 come up again. Actually gnome-tweak-tool
was installed but the system detects it as a uninstalled one.
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6Are you saying that reinstalling
gnome-tweak-tool
actually resets GNOME settings to their defaults? Or just that it can fix some problems that might motivate someone to want to reset them? Oct 7, 2012 at 12:15 -
Issue is Gnome settings reset. Reinstalling 'gnome-tweak-tool' does not reset Gnome settings. Apr 5, 2018 at 14:49
I did :
cd $HOME
cd .config
rm -R *
sudo reboot
And I've found my desktop like the first day I create my user account, but all my software params are the same (firefox, thunderbird, filezilla...)
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4This resets EVERYTHING that uses ~/.config to store configuration data. NOT recommended. Dec 20, 2017 at 0:15