GNOME Extensions and Desktop Customisation

Out of the box Ubuntu 26.04 offers little customisation — Settings can change the wallpaper and the accent colour, nothing more. Icons, cursors, top-bar buttons or making the Dock show only the current screen’s windows all need two extra tools: Tweaks and Extension Manager.

Neither tool ships with 26.04

Verified on a 26.04 install:

Package	What it does	Preinstalled?
`gnome-tweaks`	Fonts, cursor, icons, window buttons, startup apps	No (repo version 49.0-1)
`gnome-shell-extension-manager`	Browse, install and toggle extensions	No (repo version 0.6.5-1)
`gnome-shell-extension-prefs`	The older, more limited Extensions panel	No (repo version 50.1)

Most customisation guides assume one of these is already there, so on 26.04 the menus they point at simply do not exist.

Installing


sudo apt install gnome-tweaks gnome-shell-extension-manager

Search for “Tweaks” or “Extension Manager” afterwards, or run them directly:


gnome-tweaks
gnome-extensions-app

What Tweaks can change

The left column lists everything: Fonts, Appearance, Sound, Mouse & Touchpad, Keyboard, Windows, Startup Applications.

The Appearance page looks like this:

GNOME Tweaks Appearance page with Styles offering Cursor, Icons and Legacy Applications set to Yaru, and Background offering warty-final-ubuntu.png, a dark style image and an adjustment mode — Tweaks → Appearance: cursor, icons and legacy applications, plus the desktop background

Note

Older guides show an Appearance page with Applications and Shell theme dropdowns. Those are gone. GNOME 50 retired the old GTK theming path, leaving only “Legacy Applications” for programs that have not migrated.

The settings people actually use:

Goal	Where
Different cursor or icon pack	Appearance → Styles
UI font, monospace font, text scaling	Fonts
Turn off middle-click paste	Mouse & Touchpad
Window buttons on the left or right	Windows → Titlebar Buttons
Battery percentage or seconds in the clock	Top Bar
Manage startup programs	Startup Applications

Scaling the UI font to 1.25× is an alternative fix for tiny text on high-DPI screens; it pairs well with display scaling.

Extension Manager: adding features

Extension Manager has two tabs, Installed and Browse.

Extension Manager Installed tab with the Use Extensions master switch, a warning that extensions can cause performance and stability issues, and system extensions including Desktop Icons NG, SNAPD Permission Prompting, Snap Search Provider, Ubuntu AppIndicators, Ubuntu Dock, Ubuntu Tiling Assistant and Web Search Provider — Extension Manager → Installed: Ubuntu's own system extensions, each with its own switch

These are Ubuntu’s preinstalled system extensions; turning one off changes desktop behaviour immediately:

Extension	Role	If you disable it
Desktop Icons NG (DING)	Icons on the desktop	Desktop files and shortcuts disappear
Ubuntu AppIndicators	Tray icon support	Tray apps such as WeChat or Telegram lose their icons
Ubuntu Dock	The left dock	The dock disappears
Ubuntu Tiling Assistant	Window tiling helpers	Dragging a window to the edge no longer snaps
Snap Search Provider / SNAPD Permission Prompting	Snap plumbing	App Center search and permission prompts are affected

To add third-party extensions, switch to Browse and install from there — no need to fiddle with extensions.gnome.org in a browser.

Warning

The app says it itself: extensions can cause performance and stability issues. An extension is third-party code loaded into the GNOME Shell process, and a badly written one can freeze or crash the whole desktop. Install deliberately, and disable extensions first when something breaks.

Using a third-party desktop theme

Because the theme picker is gone, shell themes now go through an extension:

Install the User Themes extension from Extension Manager
Extract the downloaded shell theme into ~/.themes/ (create it if missing)
Reopen Tweaks → Appearance and the Shell theme dropdown appears

GTK application themes (“Legacy Applications”) can still be picked directly; themes live on gnome-look.org .

FAQ

The extension is installed but nothing happened

On Wayland most extensions apply immediately; if not, log out and back in. Some extensions suggest Alt + F2 then r to restart the shell, but that only works in an X11 session.

Clicking “install” on the website does nothing

That path needs the browser bridge. On 26.04 just install from the Browse tab of Extension Manager; if you really want the website workflow, install gnome-browser-connector.

`gnome-tweaks: command not found`

The package is not installed. After apt install gnome-tweaks the binary is gnome-tweaks — not tweaks.

How do I undo everything?

Disable third-party extensions, set the three Appearance dropdowns back to Yaru, and delete ~/.themes/. For a sledgehammer, dconf reset -f /org/gnome/ resets all GNOME settings, not just the cosmetic ones — use with care.

Resolution, scaling and multiple monitors — the other fix for small text on high-DPI screens
GNOME 50 tour — what each part of the desktop is called
Default app changes in 26.04 — which tools are no longer preinstalled