Minimize windows with a single mouse click in Ubuntu

In the next article we are going to take a look at how we can minimize windows with one click of an open application, by clicking on the dock icon. This is behavior that most operating systems perform. Click to minimize has always been disabled by default in Ubuntu, for some reason unknown to me. In the following lines we will explain how to enable the function "Click to minimize in Ubuntu 18.04".

With Ubuntu 18.04, Unity was completely dropped for GNOME 3. Canonical includes a modified version in GNOME, so users still have the dock on the left by default. Also by default, the "Click to minimize" option is still disabled. Since Ubuntu 18.04 uses GNOME, there are no longer available configurations in sight. This behavior can be changed through a GNOME extension called dash to dock, directly from the terminal or using the Dconf Editor.

Since Ubuntu has already modified the GNOME dash to appear as a dock on the desktop, installing dash to dock extension may create some conflicts.

Related article:

You can now have a multi-window dock thanks to Gnome's Dash to Dock

To use it we will need the GNOME Tweaks Tool or Extensions to manage and enable this feature. To begin we must go to the Dash settings to activate this "Press action".

In the window we will find the Behavior tab. In it we will see the option «action when pressing«. Among all the available possibilities, we can select between Minimize, Toggle between windows and Elevate windows and others available.

In addition to being able to use the dash to dock extension, we will have a couple more ways to enable click to minimize without installing the extension. We will only have to enable the properties manually in the terminal of our equipment.

Enables from the terminal the option to minimize windows with a mouse click

This is the easiest and most recommended way to enable click to minimize in Ubuntu. It is tremendously simple and also, does not require another app to be installed that you will never use again afterwards.

All we're going to have to do is copy a single command line and paste it into a terminal window.

To begin we are going to start the terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) in our Ubuntu 18.04 system. We continue copying the following command and we will paste it in the terminal that we just opened. To execute it, you just have to press the key Intro. Of course, you can type it all in the terminal.

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock click-action 'minimize'

If for any reason you do not end up liking the behavior of the system when you activate the option "Click to minimize", we will also be able to get rid of it with the same ease. We will only have to copy and paste or write the following command in a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and press Enter to execute it:

gsettings reset org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock click-action

Enable click to minimize windows with one click in Ubuntu 18.04 via Dconf Editor

Related article:

How to install Dconf on Ubuntu 17.04

Dconf editor is somewhat equivalent to the registry editor in a graphical environment. When the user is not comfortable with the terminal, they can also choose to do this through the Dconf editor. It must be said that using this program could be more risky than doing it from the terminal if you are not careful.

Dconf editor will not ask us for any confirmation and changes are applied as soon as you click. Because the clicks we make are emotional, it is important to be clear about them. This program can be found in the Ubuntu software option, from where it can be easily installed.

To activate the option "Enable click to minimize" we will only have to open the Dconf editor when it is installed. Once in it, we will navigate to org → gnome → shell → extensions → dash-to-dock.

Once in the option, we will scroll down and look for the click-action option to click on it. We will have to deactivate the option "default value" and change custom value to 'minimize'.