Disable Global Menu on Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy

Last updated: October 23, 2013

This tutorial shows how to disable the global menu, so that each application having its own menu bar on Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy.

Before:

global menu unity

After:

app menu unity

To do it, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run the commands below to disable it.

sudo apt-get remove indicator-appmenu

Restart your computer to apply the changes.

For Firefox, go to Tools –> Add-ons –> Extensions and disable ‘Global Menu Bar integration’.

disable global menu in firefox

Enjoy!

Twitter

I'm a freelance blogger who started using Ubuntu in 2007 and wishes to share my experiences and some useful tips with Ubuntu beginners and lovers. Please comment to let me know if the tutorial is outdated! And, notify me if you find any typo/grammar/language mistakes. English is not my native language. Contact me via [email protected] Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/ubuntuhandbook1 |

7 responses to Disable Global Menu on Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy

  1. Cash Advance Loan July 26, 2013 at 11:10 pm

    salubrious learn more

  2. This works in 13.04, but not in 13.10.

  3. As Soured said, doesn’t work in 13.10.

    The apt-get autoremove command seems to run fine except for this:

    Note, selecting ‘unity-gtk2-module’ instead of ‘appmenu-gtk’
    Note, selecting ‘unity-gtk3-module’ instead of ‘appmenu-gtk3’
    Package ‘appmenu-qt’ is not installed, so not removed

    Also, there are no “Global menu bar integration” plugin in Firefox anymore.

    Not sure if it’s safe to autoremove unity-gtk2 and 3?

    • Also, after removing these packages the unity and gnome tweak tools both misbehave, obviously this is something that shouldn’t have been changed.

      $ gnome-tweak-tool
      WARNING : Shell not installed or running
      WARNING : Error detecting shell
      Traceback (most recent call last):
      File “/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_shell_extensions.py”, line 199, in __init__
      raise Exception(“Shell not running or DBus service not available”)
      Exception: Shell not running or DBus service not available
      INFO : GSettings missing key org.gnome.nautilus.desktop (key computer-icon-visible)
      WARNING : Shell not running
      None
      INFO : GSettings missing key org.gnome.mutter (key workspaces-only-on-primary)
      Segmentation fault (core dumped)

      • Post updated!

        The new method works in Ubuntu 13.10, but only partially… some of windows will have no access to menus at all. Better to adjust on a per app basis thru setting an env in the app’s .desktop (& or quicklist entry

        Ex.’s –
        gedit
        Code:
        Exec=env UBUNTU_MENUPROXY= gedit %U
        vlc( all qt4 apps
        Code:
        Exec=env QT_X11_NO_NATIVE_MENUBAR=1 vlc %U

  4. Worked great Ubuntu 13.10. Didn’t have to change any Firefox settings.