19 responses to Ubuntu 16.04: How to Move Unity’s Left Launcher to The Bottom

1. 

   Zorn March 25, 2016 at 8:00 pm

   You can move it, but auto hide is broken. The hot corners still only work if the launcher is on the left side. It’s still cool but needs some tlc.
2. 

   molasses2 March 26, 2016 at 3:56 am

   Thanks for this! Just one note: you have a typo in the CLI commands above. “[C]anonial” should be “canonical.”
3. 

   Marek March 27, 2016 at 10:42 am

   There is an error in the commands! canoniCal and not canonial
   • 

     Ji m March 27, 2016 at 4:28 pm

     @molasses2, @Marek: fixed, thanks!
4. 

   Steve March 29, 2016 at 4:51 pm

   It belongs at the side.. That’s the whole point, it gives you more vertical space and makes use of wide displays which most of us have these days..

   With the panel at the bottom and the web browser open you lose a massive 23% of your browsing space! (if you use 1366×768 like the majority of the world do). That’s almost a quart of the screen!! You better enjoy scrolling :p

   Me, I absolutely love it at the side and couldn’t imagine using any computer where it wasn’t.
   • 

     Gio April 21, 2016 at 9:24 pm

     Hi Steve,

     a couple of questions for you:
     Is the left hand side a good option on a vertical display? Shouldn’t I be able and move the panel where I want it to be? Isn’t that the whole point?

     Cheers
   • 

     João April 22, 2016 at 1:03 pm

     …
     Steve you are right. But … with two much icons I prefer at the Bottom.
     Thanks Ji
   • 

     JCx April 22, 2016 at 10:20 pm

     Hi Steve,

     Seems to me the “majority of the world” is now using full HD screens and resolutions, or will be a few months from now. Also reducing the launcher icons size to 32 allows you to get back some of that lost space.

     And FYI vertical eye movement on an horizontal panel is a lot less stressful for your eyes and brain than having to glance at the upper-left part of your screen every time you need to check what’s running, launch an app, etc.

     Upper-left task display is a very nice thing on vertical screens but clearly a setback on traditional desktop computers screens.

     So let me be glad that Canonical does *finally* allow me to make a choice. Thank you.

     Regards,
     JC.
   • 

     jadin September 25, 2016 at 9:28 pm

     I usually make the icons really small, so the loss in screen real estate isn’t such an issue to me.
5. 

   Jim B April 25, 2016 at 3:54 pm

   23%??? Are you serious? My screen is 1600 X 900 and the launcher is FAR less than 23% of the screen, more like about 6% and I have it set to auto hide anyway. I like it at the bottom, it’s a more natural view.
6. 

   Alan April 27, 2016 at 2:20 am

   I started out using Tru64 Unix on Alpha machines. One of the CDE [Common Desktop Environment] features was the ability to add a “custom” label to the icon bar – then add shortcuts to that.
   On the standard Launcher, this would be like a sub-menu of icons popping out to the right. I really miss those sub-menus: they help reduce menu clutter, and can group similar applications.
   The OSX menu bar doesn’t have this, either.
   [Sigh] sometime I miss Tru64 Unix.
7. 

   john July 26, 2016 at 4:19 am

   worked great, I like the taskbar on the bottom, easier to move cursor there than all the way to the left for every damn thing. Thanks!!!
8. 

   Mike August 9, 2016 at 4:56 am

   Thanks for the launcher command line info. My next question is using the gsettings how to make the icons smaller. I use to use the dconf to do this but how to gsettings?
9. 

   Anonymous coward August 10, 2016 at 9:37 am

   For those of you who want to change it’s position regularly from the terminal, I wrote a simple little bash script:

   #!/bin/bash

   if [ -z “$1” ]

   then

   POS=$(gsettings get com.canonical.Unity.Launcher launcher-position | sed s/\’//g)

   if [ ${POS} == “Left” ]

   then
   echo “Moving to bottom.”
   gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Launcher launcher-position Bottom

   elif [ ${POS} == “Bottom” ]

   then
   echo “Moving to left.”
   gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Launcher launcher-position Left

   else

   echo “WTF? Current position is ${POS}”

   fi

   else

   case $1 in

   bottom)
   gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Launcher launcher-position Bottom
   ;;
   left)
   gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Launcher launcher-position Left
   ;;
   *)
   echo “Options are \”left\” or \”bottom\””
   esac

   fi
10. 

    michael August 14, 2016 at 6:49 pm

    It is possible to move launcher to right side?
    • 

      Ji m August 17, 2016 at 4:51 am

      :(, only left or bottom.
11. 

    vinob August 27, 2016 at 9:19 am

    if you scroll down further down from the display bottom, menu will appear.
12. 

    Ben October 15, 2016 at 2:07 am

    I get the error:

    GLib-GIO-Message: Using the ‘memory’ GSettings backend. Your settings will not be saved or shared with other applications.
    • 

      Hariz October 25, 2016 at 9:20 am

      Is it possible to move in ubundu 14.04 ?