Full size window on Gnome desktop

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 08:09:12 +0200

There is a todo item on my list that takes the record for staying the longest:

For a while now, I wanted to give Sway a (S)way. Sway is a window manager where you use your keyboard to move windows and adjust their size.

But setting up a new window manager such as this one (there is also Hyprland and many more) requires some time off.

I decided to go half-way before making the full switch. I looked for a Gnome extension that starts and keeps windows in full size and I finally found one: https://github.com/jqno/gnome-one-window-wonderland/

To run Gnome extensions you need the gnome-shell-extensions package.

sudo pacman -S gnome-shell-extensions

Then clone the repo and install it locally.

git clone git@github.com:jqno/gnome-one-window-wonderland.git
cd gnome-one-window-wonderland
 ./build.sh local

Next enable the extension.

gnome-extensions enable gnome-one-window-wonderland@jqno.nl

Now logout and login. New windows should start in full size.

The settings of the extension can be accessed from the “Extensions” app.

Gnome on Janik von Rotz