I have the answer to this and needed to post because it was no where to be found. You need to ask Siri to read your messages.
I had that issue, had no unread messages but still came up as 3 unread.
Easiest way to deal with this is saying ”Hey Siri” ”read my messages”.
She will read the ones that are unread that you may have missed and problem will often solve this issue.
This was driving me crazy‼️ I selected all messages older than two years and went through the rest one by one and couldn’t find any unread.
Used your “hey Siri” solution and now all is good 🙌🏼
I haven’t found success using that technique on iPad. There’s no filter option. Pics of what I see when I open messages below.
When this happens I click on Deleted Messages, click on one and hit Recover. Then go back into All Messages, delete the one you just recovered and this should remove the notification on the icon. Just be sure to have some deleted ones available and don’t delete them all.
I noticed this happened 1) after I deleted messages older than 30 days on my iPad and 2) all 6 unread messages were ones I’d marked as junk on my iPhone.
Having Siri read them aloud worked; not painful for only 6, but still definitely a bug!
I had over 1,600 unread messages, i did not have the time to listen to Siri. There is a bit of a glitch with the messages app. If you select all your messages and mark all as read, you will still see the banner with unread messages. Restart your phone, go back into messages and you will notice more unread messages. I did this but kept deleting the messages. Each time i restarted, more messages kept appearing and i kept deleting until everything was clear. Took about an hour or so but it’s the only fix i figured out. Seems like the messages app is not able to pick up all the messages in the phone and with each restart, it picks up more.
This solution worked for me. Thank you!
Pure genius. Using Siri to read you your messages solved my issue!
Amazing worked for me!
Wow, asking Siri worked like a champ! Thanks.
You can power off your phone wait one minute then turn it back on . You might have some hidden so check your hidden messages. Call support if either is not working.
The only solution that actually worked. Thank you!
THIS is the most helpful answer!! Thanks a TON!
This was great advice!! Worked.
You are awesome. This was so frustrating! Thank you!
iPhone and iPad showing unread messages even though I’m not seeing any unread message
