How to Resize the App Launcher Icons in Ubuntu Unity

Unity, the desktop environment from Canonical, being used in Ubuntu has a noticeable stuff called “Launcher” on left-hand side of desktop. It’s similar to Mac OS X Dock and Windows Task bar. You can use this to pin apps, access running or minimized apps and switch between multiple instances of a single application.

By default, Unity Launcher looks bigger for desktop, specially for small screens. At least, this big launcher icons are no pleasing to the users returning from Microsoft Windows. Even if you lock/pin more applications to it, they will eventually reach to bottom of the launcher and you may need extra one or two seconds to find/click on your pinned apps. However, in some cases you may want the launcher icons more bigger though.

Though Ubuntu doesn’t have a lot of in-built options to customize Unity Launcher , you can get some minimal settings to control it. Hopefully, changing launcher icon size is one of them. Proceed to see how to do this.

Note: Following guide is made on Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic  Unicorn

Guide to Change Ubuntu Unity Launcher Icon Size

1. Open Ubuntu System Settings. It can be accessed from Launcher or Power Menu from top-right corner (look for gear icon).
   
2. Open Appearance from Personal category.
   
3. Here, under Look tab, you will get a slider for the section Launcher icon size in bottom area. Drag the slider button left or right to decrease or increase the icon and launcher size of Unity.
   
4. You Launcher icon size will be changed in real-time when you drag the button. That’s it.

In my case, I didn’t really like those bigger icons. However, if you want your launcher icons to restore to default size, follow the value 48 in the setting. We will be writing more articles on customizing Ubuntu Unity in future.