How can I reset my display settings through terminal?

Question

I am using Ubuntu 15.10. I accidentally changed the size of the interface to maximum. Now my folders and windows are too large and don't fully fit the screen so I cannot revert the effect. Is there any way to reset the display settings to default so this can revert to normal?

score 54 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

54

Removing ~/.config/monitors.xml should do it:

Open a terminal window by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T
type rm ~/.config/monitors.xml and press Enter
immediately log out and back in. It should be reverted now

Alternatively

If you know what resolution your screen supports (e.g. 1440x900), you can run the command:

xrandr -s 1440x900

to at least temporarily set a workable solution, then subsequently change settings from GUI.

edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Community

1

answered Mar 23 '16 at 13:56

Jacob Vlijm

83,767

6

it did not work. – alexanast Mar 23 '16 at 14:07
uhd. It was the highest in the settings and it is already set at that resoloution. i think 3840x2160 – alexanast Mar 23 '16 at 14:12
Hi @alexanast just (re) tested it. Did you forget to log out/in? it works really. Local monitor settings are stored in ~/.config/monitors.xml. There is no way these settings are remembered if you remove the file and immediately log out, unless you must have done something exotic. – Jacob Vlijm Mar 23 '16 at 14:24
login screen fixed but desktop enviroment didnt. Restarting to check. edit It did not. – alexanast Mar 23 '16 at 14:34
@alexanast curious to what you did to change the settings? – Jacob Vlijm Mar 23 '16 at 14:55
well i guess i will mark this as correct since it should work. I fixed it through settings by going in blind using tab so no problem. Thanks for the soloution and you patience – alexanast Mar 23 '16 at 14:56
also works if you know the resolution you want, edit the monitors.xml file and set the resolution to your desired value – bakoyaro Mar 15 '18 at 03:34
A quick and effective way to restart the GUI (both Xorg and Wayland) in case of problems like this is to use the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace shortcut. You could remove monitors.xml and restart GUI right away using this shortcut. Unfortunately is disabled by default. You need to run sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration and answer yes when prompted to enable this shortcut. – gerlos Feb 07 '19 at 15:59
I'm using Lubuntu 18.04 and ~/.config/monitors.xml does not exist on my machine, what could be some possible alternate locations for this file? – tommy61157 May 30 '19 at 11:37
I had to restart the computer in order to have it work, but basically removing the monitors.xml did the trick. – Kosta Jun 12 '19 at 12:00
if you ended up in the recovery mode with root access the file will not be under ~, but under /home/yourusername instead – Jules Colle May 15 '20 at 18:53
I was having some bizarre dual monitor behaviors and this removal fixed it, many thanks! – Henrique Bruno Oct 03 '21 at 22:19

score 7 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:25

7

I had a similar problem to you but I found the solution here How to scale title bars and menu in Ubuntu 14.04 with the terminal only

dconf reset /com/ubuntu/user-interface/scale-factor

This changes the "scale for menu and title bars" to default.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:25

Community

1

answered Feb 19 '17 at 16:17

Slaughterfish

71

This worked for ubuntu 16.04 atleast – Slaughterfish Feb 19 '17 at 16:17
1

Also you can use dconf-editor, go to that path, Set to default. – Pablo Bianchi Jun 15 '17 at 18:56
1

it 's really good answer..thank – Anshu Jul 31 '19 at 14:36
1

you rescue me ! this works for ubuntu 20.04 – zhao yufei Jun 16 '22 at 12:12

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 03 '18 at 10:45

4

Just to add to this, since this is the first thread that appeared for me: My solution to reset the display was to use:

xrandr --listactivemonitors

answered Sep 03 '18 at 10:45

Joanna Marie

142
6

2

But this doesn't reset anything? – alphabetasoup Feb 25 '19 at 07:27
If you unplug an external monitor and display doesn't reset, running this will reset the monitor config. – Eurospoofer Jul 15 '20 at 09:33

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 16 '24 at 09:37

0

In KDE all monitors are scaled together in ~/.config/kwinrc

[Effect-zoom]
InitialZoom=1.23

answered Jan 16 '24 at 09:37

arcadius

1

score -1 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 12 '21 at 01:30

-1

Just rebooting can fix it, but it depends on what caused the change.

Before you fiddle with settings, reboot and see if the resolution reverts to the correct setting.

answered Sep 12 '21 at 01:30

Moondoggy

659

How can I reset my display settings through terminal?

5 Answers5

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