DISCLAIMER: I forked this project and fixed it with no regard for all possible usecases. I wanted this to work for my specific case. So if you find something is broken please make an Issue or a PR. I will look at everything, promised.

Install GNOME Shell Extensions Script

What

A simple shell script that can carefully yet automagically download, install, and enable all the GNOME Shell Extensions on-the-fly!

Why

The GNOME Shell Extensions website is a massive catalog of extensions for the GNOME desktop.

Installing a few extensions by-hand can become tedious (especially if it's a repetitive task like imaging multiple PCs).

This script automates the whole process with an easy-to-use setup.

For example: installing a few extensions in a scripted fashion on a clean install.

Bonus: you don't have to install the GNOME Shell Integration browser extension anymore because it's not needed :)

How

Since this is a simple shell script, it can be hot-linked (see Usage below) in one of your scripts and mass install all extensions you want.

A short overview of this script's inner-workings

1. For all purposes (metadata retrieval, installation, and status), this script uses the extension_id unique to each extension in the marketplace (in case a file is supplied with links, the id is parsed out using a simple regex).
2. Each extension has a compatibility set to a particular GNOME Shell version, this script parses the extension metadata to correctly match the user's existing desktop shell version with the extension about to be installed. Should validation fail, skip install and notify user, else install without issues. Installing an extension without matching shell version will obviously cripple your desktop.
3. This script must be run as your user and not root because it'll only ever install extensions to ~/.config/gnome-shell/extensions/. Using sudo still works tho.
4. For installing the downloaded extension and enabling/disabling extensions, it uses the gnome-extensions tool available with every GNOME desktop bundle.

Usage

Step 1: Check dependencies

This script needs curl, wget, jq, gnome-extensions (for API requests, JSON parsing, downloading, installing, and enabling/disabling extensions).

You probably already have them installed, if not, do:

For Ubuntu: $ sudo apt install -y curl wget jq

For Fedora: $ sudo dnf install -y curl wget jq

Step 2: Get this script

You can always get the latest version of this script using a single command:

rm -f ./install-gnome-extensions.sh; wget -N -q "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ToasterUwU/install-gnome-extensions/master/install-gnome-extensions.sh" -O ./install-gnome-extensions.sh && chmod +x install-gnome-extensions.sh

Step 3: Pick the extensions you want installed

For all the extensions you want to install, you can simply copy all their page links into a text file and save it for use with this script.

This sript, conveniently, accepts a file containing links to extensions and installs them.

Now, simply run the script like this:

$ ./install-gnome-extensions.sh --enable --file <filename>

Here's an example:

Open a text editor and copy paste the below links:

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/6/applications-menu/
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/307/dash-to-dock/
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/8/places-status-indicator/

save it as "links.txt" and close the editor.

Now, simply run the script like this:

$ ./install-gnome-extensions.sh --enable --file links.txt

All the extensions (URLs) specified in the links.txt will now be appropriately installed and enabled.

(Alternative Method using Extension IDs)

Each extension found on the site (https://extensions.gnome.org/) has a unique number called its Extension ID and is visible in its URL.

This script works using those IDs to download and install them.

For example, the popular User Themes extension has the ID 19 as visible in its URL: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/19/user-themes/.

Similarly, you can find and write down all the IDs of the extensions you want to install. This has to happen only once and those IDs can be reused anytime (in a script for example).

Now, run the following command to download and install them:

$ ./install-gnome-extensions.sh <extension_id1> <extension_id2> .....

For Example:

$ ./install-gnome-extensions.sh --enable 8 750 1156

This example will install extensions with IDs 8, 750, 1156 and enable them.

For help and options, run:

$ ./install-gnome-extensions.sh --help

Manually enabling/disabling extensions using GNOME Tweak Tool

By default, the script only downloads and installs extensions but does not enable them unless you've specified the --enable flag (Recommended) before running the script.

For viewing, enabling, and disabling installed extensions, use the GNOME Tweak Tool app.

For Ubuntu: $ sudo apt install -y gnome-tweak-tool && gnome-tweaks

For Fedora: $ sudo dnf install -y gnome-tweak-tool && gnome-tweaks

Find and enable extensions from GNOME Tweak Tool app > "Extensions" page.

Notes

1. As long as you have a GNOME desktop installed on the machine, you can use this script anytime and anywhere, even from KDE, XFCE etc (no graphical front-end required at all). The only hard requirements this script has is, a terminal environment and GNOME desktop installed.

2. No session reload necessary: This script internally makes use of the well-made gnome-extensions binary to install and enable/disable extensions on-the-fly.

Contributing

Please Create an Issue for any suggestions, bug report you may have with this script. Or, better yet, Send a Pull Request if you have the fixes ready.

License

MIT