"Phantom" text messages? It says I have unread texts when I don't (I have tried everything)

Ask Siri to read your unread text messages and she will read you the unread text and then she will ask you if you want to respond to the text;

tell Siri NO and the phantom text will be gone. This worked for me.

I followed the first comment of asking Siri "read my unread messages" and it found the message and the notification went away. I realized it was actually coming from the "Unknown senders" tab at the top of your Messages app. So if you're getting these, double check that portion of the app and delete/read any messages that are in there.

If one/both of these don't resolve the problem, i'm unsure what else to suggest as a phone restart or hard reset did not solve the problem for me (but it also wasn't technically "phantom" since i just wasn't paying attention that it actually existed within the "unknown senders"

Daveemmons had best solution. I had this same problem when I updated to the new iOS software last year. It obviously restored some old message that I may/may not have deleted, but was flagged as ‘unread’. i too went through all my messages (a lot easier on the iPhone 6 plus) and eventually found one from 2012?? I deleted this message which was automated from a service provider and now the alert is gone.

Have you tried:

Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings

How would I tell who sent the message? I've scrolled through my messages top to bottom and see nothing that is unread.

Thanks so much! I had 4 unread messages I couldn't see. 3 of them were from a phone my daughter was using while traveling in Greece, so I think that had something to do with it (I'm in the US). But Siri read it right out, and now the little number is gone. Thank you again!

:-/

I have the solution. Go to the person who sent you the text messages. In the conversation, delete a few of the messages that they sent you, then close the App. This should correct the problem. I just had the same problem with the App showing I had 17 unread messages, and now its back to normal. Best of luck!

This is the ONLY solution that worked - after having tried ALL of them! Thanks.

This worked!!! I tried everything else first of course. You are a genius!

Followed the instructions edkurner wrote, and it worked!!

Thank you so much

if all else has failed, do a sim swap, its a long shot but, never know, it might help

I just had the same problem. Also, on the Text symbol I can see unopened messages, but once when I go into the texts, there are none that are unopened. So I scrolled all the way down and erased, randomly, couple of old texts from before. Surprisingly, it solved my problem. 🙂