Set window transparency in Gnome

You could change window opacity/transparency by changing property _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY via xprop command.

Run:

xprop -format _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0x7FFFFFFF

and then click on window to set it to 50% opacity.

  • 0x7FFFFFFF - 50% opacity
  • 0xFFFFFFFF - 100% opacity

Set opacity via providing window id (obtained from xwininfo):

xprop -id 0x3a00006 -format _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0x7FFFFFFF

There's another extension called Glassy Gnome that works with newer versions of gnome-shell.

For more details consult the included README.