How do I set focus follows mouse in Ubuntu 17.10 and later with GNOME 3?

Question

I found multiple answers on askUbuntu about this topic. But none of them suites to Ubuntu 17.10. So I need to ask again:

How do I set focus follows mouse in Ubuntu 17.10?

Solution

You may use (GNOME) Tweaks to achieve your goal. If it's not installed, first install it by running

sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool

Launch Tweaks and go to the Windows section. Select "Sloppy" or "Secondary-Click" under Window Focus.

Alternatively you may run the following command

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences focus-mode 'sloppy'

etc.

Comments

[michael]

related: bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/1726195 (for me, seems broken specifically when switching from unity to gnome, and/or to 17.10 and wayland): I'm used to using "sloppy" focus following mouse, but I still expect alt-tab to set focus to the selected window, but in 17.10, it's necessary to actually move the mouse to the window (and let it stop, then keep it there)

[Dominick Pastore]

Is there a way to set it to change focus as soon as the mouse enters the window, rather than when the mouse stops moving?

[Phil]

What a sloppy UI! Looks like checkboxes, and looks disabled to boot! Is actually radio-button-like. Click on the one you want, ignore your instinctive urge to untick the ticked one.

[leo4jc]

I've confirmed that gnome-tweaks work on Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish). Choose "Secondary Click" and it will work.

[Dohn Joe]

The joy of Linux: change the OSs behaviour by a simple switch. Customize it as you please.

[matanster]

Is it also 18.04 safe? :-)

[pomsky]

@matt Should work fine.

[Wayne Werner]

FWIW worked for me on 18.04 (though, I tried the gsettings first and while that seemed to toggle the setting it didn't actually change the behavior)

[tekknolagi]

For whoever cares, the gsettings command also works in Fedora 32.