GNOME 49.4 Released with Shell, Mutter, and Files Bug Fixes

One month following the v49.3 desktop environment release, GNOME 49.4 has arrived as the fourth maintenance update to the stable GNOME 49 series—characterized by developers as an uneventful bugfix release.

User-facing improvements include corrections to screen time tracking with active idle inhibitors, refined tab navigation in the quick settings menu, and resolved password visibility issues during input method pre-editing. Additional fixes eliminate memory leaks and stop default folders from automatically regenerating after deletion.

The Mutter 49.4 window manager and compositor now properly handles initial display scaling in Xorg sessions, disables tone mapping during HDR playback, and enhances screen sharing compatibility for displays without reported refresh rates. This release also eliminates several crash triggers and refines idle monitoring behavior.

The Files application receives numerous stability and functionality fixes in version 49.4. Resolved issues include crashes related to disconnected MTP devices, thumbnail verification, icon caching, bind-mount trash handling, and premature rename popover closing. The update also prevents unnecessary thumbnail regeneration and streamlines script launching from the Recent view.

Control Center updates eliminate crashes in the sound and Bluetooth panels through libgvc updates for improved PipeWire compatibility. GNOME Maps resolves Settings panel access issues following the Privacy panel reorganization. GNOME Software now displays repository names more clearly, provides better data removal warnings, and correctly manages update history on rpm-ostree-based systems.

GNOME Text Editor addresses buffer corruption during language switching, resolves UTF-8 processing errors, and enhances dark theme appearance to match libadwaita 1.8.4 standards. The accompanying libadwaita update fixes focus management in dialog bottom sheet mode and corrects layout justification in AdwWrapBox components.

The notification system receives enhancements through libnotify 0.8.8, which delivers improved icon management, expanded notify-send functionality, more rigorous action validation, and a comprehensive testing framework. Long-standing issues affecting signal handling and macOS compatibility are also resolved.

Additional component updates include gnome-desktop 44.5 with memory leak repairs and seccomp enhancements, libgsf 1.14.55 with optimized stack utilization, libspelling 0.4.10 with new translations, and pyatspi 2.58.1 with collection test corrections and enhanced error messages.

Complete details are available in the official announcement or through the full changelog.

Users running GNOME 49 can obtain GNOME 49.4 through their distribution’s standard update process.