You can bring the GNOME calendar, clock and weather app icons to life in Ubuntu with a GNOME Shell extension that makes them show real-time information, right on the dock.
If you keep the clock, calendar or weather icons pinned in the Ubuntu Dock (or an equivalent, like Dash to Panel) and you find yourself wishing they were dynamic, like macOS’ native equivalents, this does it!
- Clock app icon shows the current time with ticking hands
- Calendar app icon shows the current day, month and date
- Weather app icon shows current conditions and temperature
If this sounds a bit familiar, you’ve got a good memory! The Dynamic Calendar, Clocks and Weather Icons extension I wrote about back in 2022 did the same thing, but that extension hasn’t been updated support GNOME 48 or 49.
Which is why this new version is a fork, named Dynamic Calendar, Clocks and Weather Icons (Reborn), by ‘thecalamityjoe87’ (which could easily be a username for me, given my typing accuracy).
This updated version allows you to switch between different icon themes, including Ubuntu’s Yaru icon set, GNOME’s Adwaita icon set and the perennially popular Papirus.
You can also selectively disable what’s shown in the icons. For instance, you can hide the seconds hand on the clock icon, only show the month label in the calendar, and turn off the background for the weather icon to, er, not sure why you’d do that, tbh!
Revolutionary? No, but having icons update with live information gives the dock a less static and more purposeful feel. As an alternative to using panel extensions, and easier than futzing around custom scripts to achieve the same thing, it’s a neat little tool.
Installing Dynamic Icons Extension
Fancy trying it out? You can install it from the GNOME Extensions website on GNOME 46 (Ubuntu 24.04 LTS) through GNOME 49 (Ubuntu 25.10). It works on other GNOME-based distributions like Fedora, so long as they’re running GNOME 46 and up.
In case I haven’t made it clear, this extension does require the apps it “themes” to be installed. If not, you won’t see anything. GNOME Clocks is preinstalled in Ubuntu, but GNOME Calendar is only in the ‘extended’ install. GNOME Weather is not preinstalled at all.
You can install all three (for brevities’ sake) by running sudo apt install gnome-calendar gnome-weather gnome-clocks in a Terminal window.
Be sure to pin them to your Ubuntu Dock to see them!
As ever, I recommend using the Extensions Manager desktop app to search, manage and configure GNOME Shell extensions on Ubuntu as it’s way less hassle than installing browser extensions and visiting websites to do it.
Get Dynamic Calendar, Clocks and Weather Icons (Reborn) on GNOME Extensions