How do I reset GNOME to the defaults?

For Unity-related configuration resetting, take a look here.

For Ubuntu 17.10 and higher, you can reset all the settings using dconf.

This command will delete your configuration files. Once it's run there is no going back!

Still with me?

GNOME2

Run the following in the terminal or Alt+F2:

rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity

That will do is remove all the GNOME2 configuration settings. Log out, and log back in. You'll be back to a stock desktop.

You can backup before playing around with your settings in the future:

mkdir ./.old-gnome-config && mv ./.gnome* ./.old-gnome-config && mv .gconf* ./.old-gnome-config && mv ./.metacity ./.old-gnome-config

GNOME3

If your config isn't worth saving run the following:

rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity .cache .dbus .dmrc .mission-control .thumbnails ~/.config/dconf/user ~.compiz*

To back up and reset GNOME3:

mkdir ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.gnome* ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv .gconf* ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.metacity ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.cache ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.dbus ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.dmrc ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.mission-control ./.old-gnome-config/ && mv ./.thumbnails ./.old-gnome-config/   && mv ~/.config/dconf/* ./.old-gnome-config/

For 17.10+

There isn't a great solution but this may do the job or most of it.

dconf reset -f /org/gnome/

Then log out/in

That command's path could be shortened if needing a more extensive reset, i.e. to just /org/ or even / but I'd go with above first.

Worst case one could also just go this in a terminal, I think it's a bit overkill as it will set all dconf (gsettings) back to defaults

mv .config/dconf/user .config/dconf/user.bak && sudo reboot

Fore me those directories were not sufficient - I had to delete ~/.config/dconf/user as well.

This helped for me in those two cases:

• gnome-panel config broken (tried to specify location "left" for one gnome panel, it immediately crashed and could not be started afterwards)
• GTK Theme and GTK Icons broken (nevertheless the selection via e. g. gnome-tweak-tool, it remained in ugly Windows-style grey look and icons were standard gnome - I have no clue how this was provoked, it appeared suddenly after login)

This corresponds to the Gnome 3 Fallback Mode I use on Linux Mint 12 Lisa (Oneiric based). But the GTK problem persisted in all other login modes as well (MATE, Gnome 3 Standard)!

I am unsure now to which mechanism the ~/.config/dconf/user file corresponds, as I found out that in Linux Mint only _mateconf-editor_ is installed by default but outfitted with the title and icon of gconf-editor from Natty! After installing gconf-editor additionally, this one is titled identically but has a different (new) icon. But don't rely on this icon stories, because this will rely on the icon theme which is Mint-X-Dark for me.

Theory says that dconf is the successor for gconf, but I found no information regarding the GUIs.