Ubuntu – How to restore Nautilus default settings

15.10defaultgnomenautilusunity

I am currently using Ubuntu 15.10 and wanted to try out Gnome 3.18. Everything worked, but finally I wanted to switch back to Unity, because I like it more. Since I remove all the Gnome 3 packages, my nautilus file manager looks and behaves strange. E.g. previously the "Instant-search" option was turned off which is now turned on, the corner of the window are not round but filled small black edges and the sidebar looks not right, too.

Here is a screenshot:

enter image description here

Is there any easy way to restore the default appearance and settings of nautilus?

I tried the obvious stuff, such as apt-get purge nautilus, apt-get install nautilus --reinstall and deleting .config/nautilus but nothing worked.

Thanks for you help

Best Answer

Disclaimer: I tried this on my ubuntu 17.04 but don't know if this works on 15.10. (I don't even know whether 15.10 uses dconf or gconf.)

In ubuntu 17.04, you can do this with dconf.

Most simply, just run gsettings reset-recursively org.gnome.nautilus in a terminal and every nautilus setting will be reset to default. If you want to reset only specific settings, gsettings list-recursively org.gnome.nautilus will give you a list of key-value pairs you can gsetting set or gsetting reset.

Alternatively, if you prefer a GUI editor, install dconf-tools package, run dconf-editor and navigate to /org/gnome/nautilus. Find the relevant keys and right click to reset/customize.

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