gnome-user-switcher/gnome-user-switcher-extension/README.md

GNOME User Switcher

A GNOME Shell extension that adds a user switcher to the top bar.

Features

• Shows the current username in the top bar.
• Opens a dropdown with all regular local users from /etc/passwd.
• Switches directly to the selected user if that user already has an active session (loginctl activate).
• Uses dm-tool switch-to-user when available.
• Falls back to the GNOME switch-user login screen.

Install (recommended)

make install-shell
make enable

This path uses GNOME's extension installer and registers the extension in the running shell session.

Install (manual copy)

make install
make enable

Build For extensions.gnome.org

Create a release bundle with compiled translations:

make package-release

Validate release bundle contents:

make check-release

Upload file:

dist/user-switcher@felixfoertsch.de.shell-extension.zip

Notes

• Direct switching to a user that is not logged in is display-manager dependent. On GDM, the reliable fallback is opening the login screen.