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Ubuntu has its own distinct look, but not everyone’s a fan. If you want to change the desktop’s theme, back to GNOME’s default or any other style you prefer, here’s what you need to know.
Where to Find GNOME Themes
There isn’t one centralized place to discover GNOME themes, thoughGNOME-look.orgis as close as it gets. Here you can find all three types of themes, for icons, apps, and the desktop.
You can also search for themes onDeviantArt.
How to Install Icon, App, and Desktop Themes
As free and open-source software, GNOME is an interface that distributors and users can customize. However, GNOME doesn’t make this an easy experience for typical end users.
Most themes will come ina compressed TAR archive. You will need to extract the archive into an appropriate folder depending on the theme type.
Icon Themes
Icon themes change the look of icons in your app drawer and in the Ubuntu dock.
Save icon themes in the.iconsfolder in your Home folder. Folders that begin with a period are hidden by default.To see hidden folders, you may pressCtrl + H. If the folder doesn’t already exist, create it yourself.
You can alsochange a specific folder’s icon in Ubuntuwithout downloading an entire theme.
GNOME Shell Themes
A GNOME Shell theme changes the look of the panel across the top, the menus that appear when you click on any part of the panel, and the Activities Overview.
GNOME Shell themes go in the.themesfolder within your Home folder. Again, if this folder does not exist, create it.
GTK Themes
GTK themes change the look of applications. This includes altering the color of header bars and sidebar menus.
Like GNOME Shell themes, you’re able to save GTK themes in the.themesfolder.
How to Apply Themes Using GNOME Tweaks
Downloading a theme is only part of the process. Now you need to turn them on. you may’t change themes under System Settings, and Ubuntu doesn’t come with an app that handles the job out of the box.
The easiest way to change theme is touse the GNOME Tweaks app. You can find GNOME Tweaks by searching within the Ubuntu App Center or by opening a terminal and entering this command:
Launch the app from the app drawer and click onAppearancein the side navigation menu. Here you will find various types of themes. When you go to select a theme, you will see all themes that came with Ubuntu as well as those that you’ve manually extracted into the.iconsand.themesfolders. To change the look of your apps, select the theme next toLegacy Applications.
How to Theme Snap Applications
You might notice by now that GTK themes don’t apply to apps installed—or pre-installed—in Canonical’s snap package format. Changing the GTK theme only changes themes installed as DEB files. This makes changing themes a particular challenge if you’retrying out a snap-only version of Ubuntu, but even regular Ubuntu ships a large amount of software in the snap format.
When you change a theme, you may see a pop-up that reads: “Some required theme snaps are missing. Would you like to install them now?” Clicking on this pop-up will begin the process of searching for, and installing, the companion theme for snap apps. Your experience with this will be hit or miss.
If Ubuntu fails to find the necessary snap theme, you can search in the Ubuntu App Center. Unfortunately, installing the package is only part of the process. You will need to enter terminal commands to change the theme for existing apps and a separate command for individual apps.
For example, let’s say you’re using theOrchis theme. You can install the theme using:
To change the theme for existing snap apps, run:
You can run the same command again after installing new apps, or change the theme for a specific app. For the latter, run:
It’s not an ideal situation. Unfortunately, as Ubuntu continues to embrace snaps, and GNOME developers prefer people not to theme their apps, changing themes will likely be awkward for quite some time.
