I was playing around with some settings, and now I need to reset GNOME to it's defaults - how do I do that?
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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/
Pablo Bianchi
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jrg
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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
21
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 for the info, but it'd be even better if you rewrite to incorporate your edits – djeikyb Jan 05 '12 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) – prusswan Nov 30 '12 at 04:59
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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 – leopld Jan 09 '15 at 14:52
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This is weird, i have to delete this file after every reboot to avoid login loop. – Ondra Žižka May 04 '18 at 16:33
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This solved a problem for a co-worker of mine on CentOS. After a system update Gnome window manager was not running. We could see several files like .nfs00000000002a831f00000001 in the .config/dconf directory. (Users home directory mounted over nfs on network). I think these files are often a sign of network storage problems, maybe problems where parallel access to files happens. Anyway the .config/dconf/user file must have been corrupted. rm -rf .config/dconf/user solved the problem. – gaoithe May 18 '18 at 08:32
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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
4
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.
Pablo Bianchi
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Chris Hasiński
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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
muru
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RolandiXor
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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 – Tosho Dec 25 '17 at 02:44
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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? – RolandiXor Dec 25 '17 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 https://extensions.gnome.org or they crash randomly and restart doesn't fix anything. I'll leave it like it is for now. Thanks – Tosho Dec 26 '17 at 18:09
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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.
maxadamo
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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. – mondjunge Oct 21 '13 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.
Eliah Kagan
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askkur
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6Are you saying that reinstalling
gnome-tweak-toolactually resets GNOME settings to their defaults? Or just that it can fix some problems that might motivate someone to want to reset them? – Eliah Kagan Oct 07 '12 at 12:15 -
Issue is Gnome settings reset. Reinstalling 'gnome-tweak-tool' does not reset Gnome settings. – Pasi Suominen Apr 05 '18 at 14:49
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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...)
amc
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4This resets EVERYTHING that uses ~/.config to store configuration data. NOT recommended. – RolandiXor Dec 20 '17 at 00:15
for f in .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity; do mv $f ${f}.bak; doneormkdir -p ~/.backup-gnome-config/ && for f in .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity; do mv $f ~/.backup-gnome-config/; done– hobs Aug 13 '12 at 01:38mkdir ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.gnome* .gconf* ./.metacity ./.cache ./.dbus ./.dmrc ./.mission-control ./.thumbnails ~/.config/dconf/* ./.old-gnome-config/– smac89 Dec 22 '16 at 19:08