How to go back to original top panel in Debian Mint xfce?

Question

Changes to the top panel in LMDE w/ xfce have corrupted the formatting; everything is flush left now. Unable to get the time, window switcher and other items to go flush right. How do I revert to the original panel layout so I can start over?

PS: Do NOT use sudo prepended before Risto's steps below.

Solution

Follow these steps to reset the XFCE panel, and please note that instead of permanently deleting those files which are deleted in the following steps, you can also just move them to a different place.

1. First quit the panel:

   xfce4-panel --quit
   

2. Kill the XFCE notification daemon, xfconfd:

   pkill xfconfd
   

3. Delete the panel settings:

   rm -rf ~/.config/xfce4/panel
   

4. Clear the xfconfd settings:

   rm -rf ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml
   

5. Restart the panel:

   xfce4-panel
   

Now your panel should have its default settings.

References

• Resetting XFCE Panels to default settings?