GNOME/GTK looks wrong

Desktop
1

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to undo some GTK “look & feel” tweaks I made while experimenting with a tiling window manager setup, and now parts of GNOME/GTK look wrong.

→ In i.e. GNOME Files (Nautilus), the Preferences popover is oddly laid out (spacing/sizing looks off).

What is the recommended way to reset GTK/GNOME UI overrides to defaults, without resetting all my GNOME seetings.

Thanks for any pointers I will provide exact file contents or gsettings output if you tell me what to check.

Cheers!

Bildschirmfoto vom 2025-12-16 00-20-14
Bildschirmfoto vom 2025-12-16 00-20-141049×966 148 KB

2

Did you set GTK_THEME variable? If yes, then you need to unset it.

You can install Tweaks/Refine and reset theme there. You can also delete ~/config/gtk-4.0 directory

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3

Hi!

Thanks for your answer.
Like you suggested I deleted the gtk4 folder, but this seems not to solve the problem as the popup menu remains odd looking. Any other ideas?
Cheers

4

The issue is almost assuredly GTK_THEME being set. Open a terminal and run

echo $GTK_THEME

If anything shows up, that means GTK_THEME is set. It could be set in multiple places, such as .bashrc or in flatpak overrides.

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5

Hi!

This looks quite good to me, doesn’t it?

❯ echo $GTK_THEME
Adwaita:dark

I am a little puzzled as I do not understand what config is actually defining i.e. the look and feel of these popup menus.

📦[123@tumbleweed .config]$ ls ~/.config/gtk-3.0
bookmarks
📦[123@tumbleweed .config]$ ls ~/.config/gtk-4.0
ls: cannot access '/home/kokko/.config/gtk-4.0': No such file or directory

any ideas?

Cheers.

PS: this is how the tweak app is showing its info. The settings are what I expect, still it seems like there is a other config interfering.

Bildschirmfoto vom 2025-12-17 09-45-58
Bildschirmfoto vom 2025-12-17 09-45-58788×361 29.2 KB

6

That looks wrong. As has already been mentioned this environment variable should not be set. It is intended for debugging purposes and setting it will cause libadwaita applications to look like in your screenshot.

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7

The issue is that the Adwaita Dark theme you are setting in GTK_THEME is a GTK3 theme. When Libadwaita apps attempt to load this GTK3 theme, it results in the styling breaking.

In general, it is not necessary to set this environmental variable. GTK3 apps will read from gsettings which theme to use, which does not break Libadwaita apps.

8

Yep — that was the issue. It looks fine again now :partying_face:
Somehow I ended up adding that environment variable to my .profile while experimenting with a tiling window manager.

Thanks for your support! :+1:

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