How to get Minimize and Maximize Button in Gnome

One of our readers wrote to me, “I have installed Fedora Linux on my System, and I’m facing difficulty to minimize and maximize because the Default button to maximize and minimize is not available on the top right of the screen just a single Close button is available.

It’s very annoying to switch to different applications every time I need to press Super Button to choose the application or right-click on top of the applications and do minimize.”

This incident was reported multiple times to us, and I assured all of them that I’ll provide some solutions for it.

It’s quite common for Ubuntu, CentOS, RedHat, Fedora, OpenSUSE to ship with Default Gnome Desktop Environment.

Types of a Linux File Systems

In OpenSUSE, you are allowed to choose a different desktop environment while Installing, but for others, you don’t have the options.

If it is your first experience with Linux, you will miss the Default button to Minimize and Maximize. To get back to the standard button, you need to follow my instructions and you will see the missing buttons.

Table of Contents

Prerequisites

Privilege account (sudo users)
Terminal
Gnome Desktop Environment

How the problem look like

Below is my terminal screen where you can see only the close button and you will not find the minimize and maximize buttons.

**Missing Minimize and Maximize Button**

In this guide article, we set out to resolve this issue and get back the Minimize and Maximize buttons on the title bar.

You can solve this problem by terminal method or by GUI. It is up to you to decide which method you prefer.

Command-line Method

I personally use this method to configure or retrieve the Minimize and Maximize buttons on the title bar, and you can do the same without entering sudo password.

It is very simple. You just need to do copy-paste the below command, and boom, all the buttons will show up.

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ":minimize,maximize,close"

Minimize and Maximum Button show up on the right side — **Minimize and Maximize Button** **show up** **on the right side**

The above command is not only used to bring back buttons. You can also configure button positions.

If you want to have all buttons on the top left side of the Title bar pass the below commands:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout "close,minimize,maximize:"

That’s all to get back Minimize and Maximize button on the title bar using the command method, isn’t that simple?

GUI Method

This is another method. If you don’t want to use a command-line method, you can use the below step to get back Minimize and Maximize button.

For this method, you will require to have root access to Download and Install gnome-tweak tools.

Install Gnome Tweaks tools

First, we need to install Gnome Tweaks tools into our system. Before that, once check whether tweaks tools are already installed. To check Tweaks tools, press the Super Key and search for “Tweaks”, If it is installed, you can skip this step.

In my case, I didn’t find the “Tweaks tools”, so I’ll download and install it from the terminal. To install pass the below command or do-copy paste:

For Ubuntu & Debian user

$ sudo apt install gnome-tweaks -y

For CentOS/ RHEL/ Fedora user

$ sudo yum -y install gnome-tweak-tool

Configure Windows

Once the “gnome-tweaks tool” is installed, you can run this application from the terminal itself using gnome-tweaks command or Press the Super key and search for “Tweaks”.

You will get several options to customize the gnome environment as per your preference, but now we are interested in getting the back Maximize and Minimize Button on Title bar.

To get that go to Windows tabs on the left side which will show you multiple options to customize; on the bottom, you will see the options for Titlebar Buttons.

Turn on both options Maximize and Minimize to get a button on the title bar.

As soon as you turn on this button, you will see Buttons on the title bar.

Wrap Up

That’s all my friend to get Minimize and Maximize button in Gnome. In case you need some assistance from my end, feel free to comment Down.

I want to hear what method you chose to get the back button and please write it in the comments section.

If you are interested in what drives gnome engineers to hide the legacy button? that has been running for decades, read from the official gnome mailing list.

Enjoy it!

Gagan Mishra

A man with a tech effusive who has explored some of the amazing technology stuff and is exploring more. While moving towards, I had a chance to work on Android development, Linux, AWS, and DevOps with several open-source tools.

This Post Has 3 Comments

Daniel LUCA 10 Oct 2021 Reply
Thank you!
Chee Gan 11 Nov 2021 Reply
Very useful tip. Thanks.
So when I click to minimize, the window disappears. To get it back, I need to push the cursor up to hit the
top left corner to see all minimized windows. These active windows will be barely visible and all fit into the whole screen.
Then I glance through to locate the one I like to work on. This is the step I find it tiresome. The location of icons are random since it depends on how many active window and each dimension. I have more than 2 terminals most of the time and it is hard tell which is which.
In the old days, the minimized icons are locted in a fixed posiiton in
a bar at the bottom of my screen and I simply click on it to maximize. The best thing is that a click a second time will minimize again. Since I remember the location of the
icons in the bar much better, I tend to work more efficiently. But it is all gone in the new Gnome3.
This is the thing I really miss in Gnome2. Everything seems so practical. I tried to stick to Gnome2 classic but there are certain quirks that annoys me which equally upset me (I guess no one would want to maintain a good working old technology but to work on the newer platform).
AM 28 Jan 2022 Reply
Why after using gnome-tweaks to enable the minimize & maximize buttons “gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout” still returns ‘appmenu:close’? I expected to see the change reflected there.