How can I remove window shadows in Unity?

I think you have to choose a theme other than Ambiance or Radiance, because those override compiz's shadow settings.

If you really want to use the Ambiance borders without shadows:

  1. Create a copy of Ambiance: cp -R /usr/share/themes/Ambiance ~/.themes
  2. open ~/.themes/Ambiance/metacity-1/metacity-theme-1.xml and remove all of the <shadow> tags.
  3. Open up appearance preferences and select your new, duplicate "Ambiance" theme.
  4. Disable shadows in CCSM

Update 2015-01-21 In recent versions of Ubuntu you'll need to use Ubuntu Tweak Tool in step 3, since recent versions of the control center don't support custom themes.


  • Install CompizConfig Settings Manager

    sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

  • Launch it by searching from the dash in Unity, or Preferences > CompizConfig Settings Manager in Ubuntu Classic.

  • Navigate to the Window Decoration tab.enter image description here

  • Slide the Shadow Opacity to 0.enter image description here


If you're using Ubuntu 15.04, do the following.

  1. Install CCSM as in the previous answer above.

    sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

  2. Run ccsm and click on "Ubuntu Unity Plugin"

  3. Click on "Decorations" tab and click on "Overrride Theme Settings".

  4. The shadow should disappear since the default "Active window shadow color" is transparent.

Tags:

Compiz

Unity

Recent Posts