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Incorrect badge notifications on messages

I’ve read all my messages in my iPhone 13, yet have a persistent red badge indicator that I still have 13 unread messages. I’ve updated ios, turned off notifications, restarted the phone & then turned notifications back on - still those 13 phantom unread text messages☹️

iPhone 13 Pro Max

Posted on Dec 14, 2022 11:48 AM

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Question marked as Best answer

I've also tried marking all as read and scrolling through all my messages, yet my unread messages still shows 12 on my iPhone 13 Mini iOS 16.2. What fixed is for me was triggering "Hey Siri, read my messages"

Posted on Jan 25, 2023 9:56 AM

35 replies

Oct 5, 2023 2:44 AM in response to Fidel2002

The similar issue happened to me on my Mac. There was 1 red notification badge on Messages app on Mac (macOS Ventura 13.5.2), even though there was no unread messages at all. As @ryingg suggested, I told Siri on Mac like "Read my message". Siri started reading a message that I didn't recognize (maybe a junk message?). The red badge disappeared after Siri reading the message. Thank you @ryingg for leaving the answer here!

Oct 22, 2023 5:19 AM in response to Fidel2002

Problem: The iPhone messages counter indicates unread messages, but a search for these messages yields no results.


Cause: It seems iOS has a phenomenon resembling ghost messages, inaccessible unless each sender is individually opened to view all messages.


Typical Solution: The only viable resolution is utilizing Siri and instructing it to read messages, a time-consuming process that took approximately 20 minutes for 100 messages.


My Approach: I've devised a more efficient strategy by employing Siri on CarPlay. Leveraging the skip button feature, I managed to handle 500 messages in less than 10 minutes. This new method significantly streamlines the process compared to the conventional approach, enhancing both speed and efficacy.

Incorrect badge notifications on messages

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