Introducing GNOME 51

After six months of development, GNOME 51 has been released, the latest version of GNOME. The release is named after GUADEC 2026, held in Galicia, Spain. GNOME's graphics technologies have been enhanced for smoother performance. The Settings app has received various refinements, including an Auto Rotate option for devices with an accelerometer and improved display arrangement with center-aligned snapping.

The Mouse settings now disable the touchpad when a mouse is plugged in, and the Network settings have new DNS domain search options. Remote Login supports SSH socket servers, and the Users tool has an improved fingerprint enrollment interface. GNOME Remote Desktop allows users to connect to their computer from another device, and Maps now features offline maps for a chosen region.

Files has multiple improvements, such as dragging and dropping multiple items and a more responsive Calendar app. The Web browser has been polished and hardened, and the Software app manager focuses on safety and speed. Calendar is faster, and the image viewer provides more information about images. Papers, the document viewer, can now insert visual signatures into documents.

GNOME also recognized three new community-created apps in its Circle initiative: Bobby, Tally, and Bazaar. GNOME 51 has a new default wallpaper design and additional variants available.