How do I reset GNOME to the defaults?

I was playing around with some settings, and now I need to reset GNOME to it's defaults - how do I do that?

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?

GNOME 2

Run the following on a terminal or with Alt+F2:

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

That will remove all the GNOME 2 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

GNOME 3

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