How Do I Uninstall A Theme?
Please Keep in mind themes are pretty small so you can safely leave them alone if any of these steps seem scary or intimidating.
To start, remember there are two types of themes:
1.) Icon Themes
2.) GTK GUI Themes
(!) Before You Start:
Switch off of the theme you are removing and change to a theme you are not going to remove! If you don't. You are asking for trouble.
PPA or Deb Install Removal
There also multiple ways to install themes, If you installed the theme using a PPA or a Deb Package all you have to do to remove it is...
1.) Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) or open one in the app menu...
2.) Remove the theme type: "sudo apt-get remove Package Name"
Package Name would be the name of the theme you can find this on the themes download page under the PPA install instructions.
You can also do this VIA a GUI tool like Synaptic Package Manager or Software Centre (We recommend Synaptic for this)
1.) Simply Open up the synaptic package manager and type in the search field the name of the theme you want to remove... click search.
2.) Now right click on the theme and click "Remove" Then Click Apply.
If you are doing this in software center you will have to type the name in the search field and click "Show Technical Items"
MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT REMOVE "light-themes" this is Ubuntu's stock Ambiance.
Manual removal:
(!) Be careful you can do damage to your system if you go trigger happy and delete stuff. It's best to leave things alone if you are unsure. Also don't just go through and delete all the themes you find in the following folders or you will screw things up.
You have to browse to either
System Wide Install:
/usr/share/themes/ - For GTK2/3 Themes
/usr/share/icons/ - For Icon Themes
Home Dir Install
.Themes - For GTK2/3 Themes
.Icons - For Icon Themes
And Delete the folders of the theme you want want to remove.
Remove Themes Installed In Your Home Dir:
To get to the ones on your home dir you open up your home folder and view hidden files (Toggle this with Ctrl+H) or Menu Option,
And look for the folder called:
.Themes - For GTK2/3 Themes
.Icons - For Icon Themes
In your home Dir, If these folders do not exist or contain no items your theme is not installed here it is installed system wide... See bellow.
(!) After this: Make sure to press ctrl+h to rehide the hidden .folders. or goto edit preferences and rehide hidden folders and files.
Remove Themes Installed System Wide:
(!) BE CAREFUL This Method users root user privileges to remove files.
You need to open up a file manager in root user mode,
Open A Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) Or browse and open one in app menu
In a Terminal Type:
Depending on your system you may need to replace gksu with sudo or su -c However PLEASE TRY gksu first! the others can cause permission issues with thumbnails or apps if you open them while in that mode. gksu is safest,
gksu nautilus - For Unity Gnome
gksu nemo - For Cinnamon
gksu caja - For MATE
gksu thunar - For XFCE or Openbox
gksu pcmanfm - For LXDE or OpenBox
Then browse to either (Depending on theme type):
/usr/share/themes/ - For GTK2/3 Themes
/usr/share/icons/ - For Icon Themes
Once in one of the folders listed above. Find and Delete the folder(s) of the theme you want to remove. Try to look for a delete option if possible. (Sometimes it needs to be enabled in preferences.)
If you decide to send them to trash instead. Be sure to Empty the trash before you close the window! This is "Roots Trash" and it will stay there for a bit if you forget. Then close the file manager.
If you forget to empty the trash or can't for some reason we recommend installing bleach-bit and running it as super user with "empty trash" Option selected.
If you are no longer seeing image, video or other thumbnails in nautilus after opening a root file manager session fix your permissions with:
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER ~/.cache/thumbnails
