Ubuntu – How to remove gnome terminal profiles in 16.04 LTS

You can manipulate the gnome-terminal settings programmatically using gconftool e.g. to restore the settings of the default profile

1. open a plain xterm from the dash
2. execute gconftool --recursive-unset /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default

Short answer: gnome-terminal only prompts you if a foreground process is active and the configurable option confirm-close is true.

The long answer is:

As you can see in source code, gnome-terminal checks vor TERMINAL_SETTING_CONFIRM_CLOSE_KEY when it receives a window close request.

Here you will see that it maps to confirm-close.

You may get or set this setting using

gsettings get org.gnome.Terminal.Legacy.Settings confirm-close
gsettings set org.gnome.Terminal.Legacy.Settings confirm-close true

The source of the function that decides if a confirmation is needed is here.

gnome-terminal only asks for a confirmation if confirm-close is true and if a foreground process is active in at least one tab. So if you want to always be asked before closing a gnome-terminal window you have create one tab and start a foreground process in it, i. e.

ping -i 10 127.0.0.1

Furthermore you have to activate tabs:

menu -> terminal -> settings -> open new terminal in: tabs

You may create a gnome-terminal profile which starts such a process automaticly. So you can configure gnome-terminal to start that profile on startup or you may easy start it yourself selecting

file -> new terminal -> your profile

from the menu.