Linux · GNOME 50 · desktop settings
Ubuntu Settings: the GNOME control centre, panel by panel
Ubuntu's Settings is GNOME's control centre with an Ubuntu theme: a sidebar of panels on the left, the selected panel on the right. This page walks that sidebar as it stands in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS on GNOME 50, explains what 24.04 and 22.04 did differently, and links every panel to a screen you can open. The trees are compiled from GNOME's own panel definitions.
- Newest release here
- Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
- Versions you can open
- 3
- Top-level sections
- 23 (1 of them plain switches)
- Rows in the tree
- 510
How Ubuntu organises its Settings
The sidebar begins with connectivity: Wi-Fi, Network, Mobile Network and Bluetooth. Then the hardware panels most people open, Displays, Sound and Power, where the battery health limit and the Balanced or Power Saver profiles live. Multitasking and Appearance follow, then Apps, which since GNOME 46 collects Default Apps and each installed app's permissions in one place. Notifications, Search, Online Accounts and Sharing complete the middle of the list.
Wellbeing, new in GNOME 50, brings screen-time limits, greyscale after a threshold and movement reminders to the desktop. Mouse & Touchpad, Keyboard, Color Management, Printers and Graphics Tablets form the input block. Accessibility and Privacy & Security come next, the latter holding Screen Lock, Location, File History and the Forbid New USB Devices switch. System closes the list and carries Region & Language, Date & Time, Users, Remote Desktop, Secure Shell and About.
What changes between versions
Three long-term-support releases are here, each from its own GNOME. Ubuntu 22.04 on GNOME 42 has the older, longer sidebar with Applications, Region & Language, Users, Date & Time and About as separate panels. Ubuntu 24.04 on GNOME 46 folds those into System, introduces the Apps panel and renames Privacy to Privacy & Security. Ubuntu 26.04 on GNOME 50 adds Wellbeing, whose panels are written in Blueprint and compiled back to GtkBuilder for the simulator.
Three settings worth knowing the path to
- Settings > Power > Preserve Battery Health
A charge limit that stops a laptop at around eighty percent. It arrived with GNOME 48 and is the setting to know about on a machine that lives on a desk plugged in.
- Settings > Privacy & Security > Forbid New USB Devices
When the screen is locked, newly plugged USB devices are ignored. It is the one desktop security switch that most people never discover, three rows below Screen Lock.
- Settings > Wellbeing > Screen Time Limit
New in GNOME 50: a daily limit with a greyscale reminder when it is reached. It shows how far the desktop has borrowed from phone settings.
Questions people ask about Ubuntu settings
Why did Region & Language and Users disappear from Ubuntu Settings?
GNOME 46, which Ubuntu 24.04 ships, moved them, together with Date & Time, Remote Desktop and About, into a single System panel at the bottom of the sidebar. Ubuntu 22.04 in the simulator still shows them separately.
Is this Ubuntu or plain GNOME?
The panels are GNOME's, taken from the version each Ubuntu release ships, so the sidebar matches Fedora or Debian on the same GNOME. What Ubuntu adds sits inside the panels rather than changing the list.
Are the menus real?
They are generated from the GNOME Settings source for each release, so the panel names, order and rows are the project's own. The device names and network shown are sample values.