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I want to remove the trash icon, the home icon as well as the drives from my desktop. I've removed them in Ubuntu 20.04, but after updating, they were there again:

I tried:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock show-mounts false
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.desktop-icons show-trash false
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.desktop-icons show-home false

No such schema “org.gnome.shell.extensions.desktop-icons”

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons false

No output

But all icons are still there. Any ideas how to fix this?

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  • 1
    sudo apt install dconf-editor will give you a graphical interface to explore, find (complete with search feature), and adjust the same settings.
    – Levente
    May 1, 2021 at 18:22
  • Also look up how your gnome-shell extensions are called now, and whether you can spot one responsible for the feature.
    – Levente
    May 1, 2021 at 18:26
  • Thanks a lot! With your help, I found the solution.
    – Alwin
    May 1, 2021 at 19:12
  • You can add it as an answer, so we could also learn the solution :)
    – Levente
    May 1, 2021 at 19:13
  • Work in progress :)
    – Alwin
    May 1, 2021 at 19:15

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
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You can actually keep DING enabled. Then right-click the desktop and select the last item: "Desktop Icons settings". There you can control what DING does, for example remove the home and wastebasket icons :)

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  • 1
    This is the way.
    – solr
    Jun 6, 2021 at 6:42
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    so much searching - this obviously the intended way to do this, its amazing how hard it is to find online. Thank you for posting the obvious answer!
    – JBCP
    Mar 25, 2022 at 14:29
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    This also works in Ubuntu 22.04
    – ValarDohaeris
    Aug 25, 2022 at 14:26
  • Is there a similar setting for the trash icon on the taskbar?
    – RomanSt
    Sep 23, 2022 at 10:36
  • @RomanSt if you mean the "dock" or whatever it is called, the launcher column on the screen left side, I don't know. That horrible thing is long gone from my screen, sorry ;)
    – Bernt Ribbum
    Sep 24, 2022 at 11:12
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Thanks to @Levente's comment I found out the solution.

There is an application called "Extensions" which lets you manage the Gnome Extensions. You can just disable the pre-installed extension called "Desktop Icons NG (DING)" and the icons will disappear:

Extentions

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gnome-extensions disable [email protected]
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To hide the trash and home icons:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.ding show-trash false
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.ding show-home false

To additionally hide the external drives:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.ding show-volumes false

Slightly off-topic, but I think it's nice to show hidden files when they are in the Desktop (so I can remove them or process them accordingly since in my workflow typically hidden files should not be there):

gsettings set org.gtk.Settings.FileChooser show-hidden true
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in Ubuntu 22.04 it's easy to remove the 'home' icon from the desktop:

1 - right click on your desktop
2 - select 'desktop icons settings'
3 - deselect 'show personal folder'

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