New themes and icons

FIND YOUR THEME

Go to gnome-look.org to find your chosen theme. Look in the GTK2 Themes and GTK3 Themes categories. If you’re using Ubuntu with the standard Unity desktop rather than Gnome, some of these themes may not be compatible. Read through the comments section for each theme to check if it’s been installed previously in Ubuntu. To install an icon pack, click the ‘Icon Themes’ section.

SAVING THE THEME

Open your file manager and navigate to your home folder. Hold down ‘Ctrl-H’ to display hidden files, then scroll down to find the folder named .themes. If the folder isn’t there, you can create it by right-clicking and then selecting ‘New Folder’. Copy and paste the downloaded file into this folder. If it’s compressed, right-click and choose ‘Extract Here’.

LOAD YOUR THEME

Open Ubuntu Software and enter the words “Gnome Tweak” in the search bar. Click Install to begin downloading the app. If you’re using the mainstream version of Unity, the icon for the Tweak tool will appear automatically in the launcher. Open the Tweak tool from the launcher on the left and select Appearance on the left-hand side. Click the drop-down menu that’s alongside GTK+ and select your chosen theme. If the theme doesn’t include an icon set, you can also install one by repeating the steps above, but save the file to the .icons folder in your home folder instead of .themes. You can select your new icon set from the Appearance section of the Gnome Tweak tool by clicking the corresponding drop-down menu.