Step 1: A trivial application To make gnome-shell use the desktop file and icon for this example while running it uninstalled, do the following: mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications sed -e "s#@bindir@#$PWD#" org.gtk.exampleapp.desktop \ > ~/.local/share/applications/org.gtk.exampleapp.desktop mkdir -p ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps cp exampleapp.png ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps