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How do I reset my Unity configuration?

I've been messing around with Unity and broke something, how do I "start over"?
unity configuration

edited Oct 20 '11 at 15:33 RolandiXor

36.3k 10 71 158

asked Dec 15 '10 at 17:51 Jorge Castro

21.6k 58 247 468

11 Answers
The simplest way to do this is to hit open a Terminal or hit
Alt

F2

and run the command:

For 12.04 and older:

u n i t yr e s e t

edited Sep 7 '12 at 16:01 Jorge Castro

21.6k 58 247 468

answered Dec 15 '10 at 18:00 Kees Cook

9,528 3 27 66

For 12.10 and above

I, along with jokerdino and amithkk have created a python script that cleanly resets Unity for Quantal and above. It is hosted on github at https://github.com/phanimahesh/unity-revamp The script is now bundled with Unity Tweak Tool. You can install it using
s u d oa d d a p t r e p o s i t o r yp p a : f r e y j a d e v / u n i t y t w e a k t o o l d a i l y s u d oa p t g e tu p d a t e s u d oa p t g e ti n s t a l lu n i t y t w e a k t o o l

To reset Unity, do
u n i t y t w e a k t o o lr e s e t u n i t y

What happens behind the scenes?

Simple. We chase each individual setting that Unity uses, and reset them to their default values, and then reload unity to apply changes. Ah yes, we also kill Unity and compiz before we start, since it is known to get tricky if we change settings under compiz's nose.

Why is this better compared to using d c o n f e d i t o r or d c o n fr e s e t ?

Didier Roche (didrocks), the author of unity python wrapper says d c o n fr e s e t does not work in all cases. The consensus among Unity developers is that the settings be modified using Gsettings instead of dconf directly.

What exactly is d c o n f ?
A little history The configuration settings were managed by gconf earlier. Gnome provides Gsettings as a replacement for gconf. Gsettings is a high level api that manipulates the settings stored in a backend. Unity stores its settings in the backend dconf since it can be loaded much faster than gconf.
edited Sep 18 at 11:25 answered Oct 17 '12 at 10:18 Mahesh
3,802 15 35

Could you explain why this is better than u n i t yr e s e t, which is the currently accepted answer? Flimm Dec

Could you explain why this is better than u n i t yr e s e t, which is the currently accepted answer? Flimm Dec 24 '12 at 10:33

1 5

12.10 and above : unity --reset was not implemented in 12.10. Efforts are underway to get it restored in 13.04. Meanwhile, this is the best bet. Mahesh Jan 1 at 17:31 Update: I could not complete the automated tests in time and hence a patch I made is not included in 13.04. However, u n i t y t w e a k t o o l in raring (13.04) comes bundled with this script. u n i t y t w e a k t o o lr e s e t u n i t y should cleanly reset unity. Mahesh Apr 9 at 13:58 FYI that ppa doesn't work: "Unable to locate package unity-reset" NoBugs Aug 7 at 1:54 Also it seems the program from that github address doesn't work on 13.04 :( All I get is tons of errors, "Error spawning command line dbus-launch --autolaunch....... Child process exited with code 1" NoBugs Aug 7 at 2:01

As Kees said, running u n i t yr e s e t will reset all of the launcher options, but it won't remove your custom favorites. To also remove any launchers you've added to the launcher, run
u n i t yr e s e t i c o n s

Or manually by:
g s e t t i n g sr e s e tc o m . c a n o n i c a l . U n i t y . L a u n c h e rf a v o r i t e s

I would recommend running the gsettings command before u n i t yr e s e t, so that you won't have to restart unity for the gsettings key reset to take effect.
edited Apr 15 '11 at 14:02 Jorge Castro
21.6k 58 247 468

answered Mar 8 '11 at 20:51 Alex Launi

1,708 6 17

Why would you want to reset your favorites? NoBugs Aug 7 at 1:53

Try to do this: 1. Login into Ubuntu 2. Open a terminal by hitting CTRL + ALT + T 3. Insert and run this commands:
g c o n f t o o l 2r e c u r s i v e u n s e t/ a p p s / c o m p i z 1 u n i t yr e s e t

4. Restart, this should work.

edited Sep 7 '12 at 14:55 Eliah Kagan
27.4k 8 64 153

answered Oct 26 '11 at 22:19 eNry

317 2 4

For Ubuntu 12.10 (Revised, again)

OK, here it is. You can use 'dconf reset' as previously outlined and will do exactly what 'unity --reset' used to do.
d c o n fr e s e tf/ o r g / c o m p i z /

Then restart:
c o m p i zr e p l a c e&d i s o w n

Apparently it would actually be better to stop compiz before using the 'dconf reset'. Which I'm currently working on. You can also look at the settings you have:
d c o n fd u m p/ o r g / c o m p i z /

To reset the unity icons you can still use

u n i t yr e s e t i c o n s

This information is from a variety of sources, after much googling.

edited Oct 14 '12 at 5:20 answered Oct 8 '12 at 21:06 fabricator4
4,970 1 11 26

If you've messed with the indicators and need to reset those see this question: How do I set the panel whitelist back to the default?
answered Nov 6 '11 at 20:25 Jorge Castro
21.6k 58 247 468

Install ubuntu tweak. The beauty of ubuntu tweak is that you can save desktop and application settings and restore after you messed something up. It also has a function to go back to original settings.

answered Jun 16 '11 at 19:59 dago

1,515 10 17

Ubuntu Tweak, AFAIK, does not work with Ubuntu 11.10 yet. Also, I think this answer needs more detail on which specific settings need to be changed. WarriorIng64 Oct 20 '11 at 15:38

Sometimes people accidentally turn off the Unity plugin or setting an unsupported option in CCSM can cause it to break. You can turn it back on by following these directions: Unity doesn't load, no Launcher, no Dash appears
edited May 8 '12 at 16:32 Bharat
174 2 14

answered Nov 10 '11 at 5:38 Jorge Castro

21.6k 58 247 468

For 12.10 13.04 [maybe older]

I use this workaround to reset the unity configuration. But with Unity, it resets all configurations such as the custom wallpaper, themes, icon themes etc. 1. Delete the user specific dconf database file:
r m~ / . c o n f i g / d c o n f / u s e r

2. Then Logout and Login again. IMPORTANT! Be sure that you BACKUP this file, because you lose ALL Unity's settings and switch to default!
edited Sep 16 at 15:06 Evgeniy Trifonov
13 5

answered Oct 3 '12 at 16:35 Anwar Shah

17.4k 5 39 92

For 11.10 and later

From http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Unity/FAQ

c d~ ;r mr f. g n o m e. g n o m e 2. g c o n f. g c o n f d. m e t a c i t y. c o m p i z 1. c o n f i g / c o m p i z 1. c o n f i g / d c o n f

edited May 12 '12 at 6:01 jokerdino

17.3k 10 63 148

answered Nov 30 '11 at 3:34 Ronramon

9 1

This way you would remove much more. Not just Compiz/Unity configs... Rostislav Stribrny May 2 at 10:12

Myself, I'd simply try r mr f~ / . c o m p i z 1

answered Sep 28 at 10:31 Muhammad Hewedy
108 5