How to disable window top bar for specific apps?

silverabyte · November 1, 2025, 10:01pm

Hello! I've recently installed Discord on my PC, and I immediately noticed that the top bar seems to be the default instead of Discord's custom-styled one:

This is what I'm used to (what I see on Windows 10):

Is there a way to disable the default top bar for just Discord? Either to toggle it and have the dark style instead, or just to turn it off in general? I looked online, but the extensions/packages I found only seem to hide the bar for all apps.

(I'm running Zorin OS 18 Core, and I installed Discord via tar.gz.)

Aravisian · November 1, 2025, 11:06pm

Discord is electron built and so, it provides its own theme instead of matching system theme.
In your Discord Settings, have you enabled Dark Mode?

silverabyte · November 2, 2025, 12:53am

I tried switching around themes in Discord just now, and it didn't change - the top bar stayed white for all of them. I'm currently using one of the dark modes (Ash).

Aravisian · November 2, 2025, 12:57am

What system theme are you using?

silverabyte · November 2, 2025, 1:01am

The light theme, with a blue accent. All options in "Other" are default except for the cursor.

Aravisian · November 2, 2025, 1:02am

So, it sounds like Discord is adopting your system theme CSD.

And you want them to be mistmatched? Light theme for system, but dark theme for Discord?

silverabyte · November 2, 2025, 1:08am

Yep! :D

Aravisian · November 2, 2025, 1:15am

What happens if you launch discord from terminal with

discord --disable-features=UseSystemTitleBar

Does it use its own dark titlebar? If so, we can set that in its .desktop file exec line.

silverabyte · November 2, 2025, 1:32am

Seemed promising, but there still wasn't any change. Should I try the exec line anyway?

Aravisian · November 2, 2025, 1:35am

No, it did not work. Try:

discord --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform,WaylandWindowDecorations --ozone-platform=wayland

silverabyte · November 2, 2025, 1:45am

Still no change. Hmm...

Forpli · November 2, 2025, 2:56am

Maybe vesktop could be an option?

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1eikd92/is_there_any_way_to_make_discord_use_its_own/

Did you try the gnome extension Undecorate Window? But it only supports Wayland not XOrg (edit: I only have X11 on my virtual machine and there it worked. You can press Alt+ space to show the menu and then select "undecorate" when you want to remove the topbar of a window)

Before:

After I clicked on undecorate:

The topbar is not shown now. You can press Alt+space to show the menu again to "decorate" or close the window. It is only applied to windows/apps when you select it in the contextmenu of the window, not to other apps.