I just added and modified a .desktop file in my /home/user/.local/share/applications folder.
Is there any way to refresh the icon and caption in the list of applications without logging out?
asked Apr 27, 2011 at 13:24
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6 Answers
You can restart the gnome-shell by pressing Alt+F2 and then typing in either "restart" or just "r" and pressing Enter.
Otherwise I've noticed that it automatically refreshes .desktop files after waiting a little while.
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Well, that alt-f2 really made is so I didn't even need to do it. and I did notice that it was refreshing my applications. Now all my applications are gone. I must have messed something up! But there must be cron job to do it then eh? I'll check there. Commented Apr 27, 2011 at 13:41
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31This will show "Restart is not available on Wayland" as of
gnome-shell-3.20– lkraavCommented Jun 27, 2016 at 22:40 -
3-1, this doesn't work on Wayland, which is very common nowadays and cannot be ignored in the answer. The message is "Restart is not available on Wayland" , as Ikraav already reported. Commented Dec 17, 2022 at 6:50
From Desktop entries in Arch linux wiki, this works on later versions of Gnome:
update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications
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Please refer to the XDG Desktop Menu Specification. To update the list of available desktop launchers in the Applications menu please run:
xdg-desktop-menu forceupdate
The update will be reflected in couple seconds.
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3I'm not sure why you're downvoted. This is the only thing that worked for me. I would note that it failed silently when I had errors in the Desktop Entry file, but once I had them fixed it worked fine. Commented Jun 8, 2021 at 21:57
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Same here. It didn't refresh all I needed, but at least it allows me some control which literally none of the other answers gave (NixOs, Wayland + Gnome3)– seheCommented Mar 23 at 20:22
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Cross-posting this from the Ubuntu question site.
You need to:
- Update the timestamp on the top-level icon directory
- Run
gtk-update-icon-cache
Note: hicolor is the default theme which app developers should use. if you're making an icon theme, refresh your icon theme's folder instead.
sudo touch /usr/share/icons/hicolor ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor
sudo gtk-update-icon-cache
See (the only documentation I can find for this): https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Scriptlets#Icon_Cache
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when running wayland, doing alt+f2, and then run "r" wont work. This saved me a lot of time. (otherwise have to logout and login again)– DaverixCommented Nov 28, 2017 at 11:50
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Tried all of the above. Only thing that worked in the end was logging out, and logging back in.
Sometimes it's the simple things that work best.
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1Appreciate this confirmation having reached the end of the list with no reprieve :)– seheCommented Mar 23 at 20:24
I tried a few ways, including these posted here, but none worked except this one
gnome-shell --replace & disown
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Well.... this worked but it also pooched my Gnome. I got a 'Oh no! Something has gone wrong' message. But the desktop files were updated :-/ Commented Dec 17, 2020 at 19:58
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Nix + Wayland + Gnome3:
libmutter-Message: 21:22:48.638: Running GNOME Shell (using mutter 45.5) as a Wayland display server Failed to setup: Could not take control: GDBus.Error:System.Error.EBUSY: Device or resource busy– seheCommented Mar 23 at 20:23