My iPhone shows a message notification, but there are no unopened messages. How do you clear the notification off the icon.

I was able to solve it by opening the Messages app so my texts were listed out, then hit "Edit" in the upper left-hand corner, and then selecting the option "read all", which is listed on the lower left-hand corner of the screen. I noticed that one of my messages came up as unread and I opened that message and then closed it, and then exited the Messages app and returned to the phone home screen and the notification for my Messages app was no longer there. Success!

I had this happen twice. Found out how to fix it. Go to Settings>General>Reset>Reset network settings. It goes back to factory setting. After that, several new voicemail messages (dated days ago) popped up all at once. I opened them and the red badge went away. Apparently there was some WiFi blockage such that incoming voicemail could not get on the phone. Last time it was after I was using an Overseas Access from AT&T, and when I came home, apparently the phone was still stuck in the overseas mode, and the voicemails were waiting out in cyberspace.

Hi

I have the message notification showing "1" on my home screen. I went into it hit edit and read all as you said, but the badge app icon is still red and showing "1". Any other ideas that anyone has to get rid of this??? Obviously all my messages have been read anyway. I did delete a few messages that I hadn't read as I knew what they contained. Please help. I'm using an iPhone 6s and iOS 10.3.2.

Thx Kirst xXx 😇⭐

I had the exact same thing go to settings>notifications>find messages>click show badge icon off if your iPhone is turned off you will still get a message if your iPhone is turned on it will still say you got a message it just won’t show the red number on messages

Give this a try, make sure your badge icon is turned on, send your self a message, leaving the message app open, do a restart by holding the home button and the sleep button until you see the apple logo. The unread message badge should be gone

I have Line on iPhone 6 and continue to see 2 message notifications marked as UNREAD but there are no unopened messages.

Have opened and scrolled through every contacts messages with no success. Have powered off and on twice. What next?

Glad it worked, but I think this is only a temporary fix as the problem reoccurred on my grandsons iPad mini. I guess if Apple receives enough complaints they will recognize this as an issue and look into it and fix it in a future update

I have this problem too. It is caused when you delete a group message (may also happen with one on one message, but I haven't seen that yet) and then someone "likes" or reacts to something on that message string. If someone posts something new to that message string, the deleted message string reappears in your messages app and you can click on it and the notification will go away (so no problem in that case); but if someone only "likes" or reacts to something on the deleted message string then you will get a notification but the deleted message does not reappear in your messages app and you can't get rid of the notification icon. In some earlier iOS versions it used to be that if someone "likes" or reacts to something on the deleted message string it would reappear in your messages app, but that feature was removed for some reason a couple of iOS updates ago.

I tried the technique from pops661 a few times, and the indicator is still on. I don’t remember exactly when it started, but it is only on my iPand and I get the messages on my iPhone too. Could it be unique to the iPad or the latest version of IOS?

jmlevy52...I think it could be a bug in the latest update (but that's just my guess). It never happened to my iPad or my grandsons iPad mini before the update. I found the fix by accident just by trying different things, I didn't what to go through the headache of restoring it and starting over from scratch. The one thing I may have failed to mention was I deleted all of my messages then... sent myself a message, leaving the app open then a forced restart ..good luck

One way to avoid this problem if it is caused by the situation I explained in my post above (someone on a group message that you deleted reacting (liking etc) to it) is to left-swap on the lock screen notification when you get it and choose "view". This will clear the notification from the messages icon.

Try this:
Quit all apps: Double tap the Home button and swipe the app preview page up for each open app

then

Reset: Hold the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons and don’t let go until the screen goes dark and the Apple logo appears (no data will be lost)

Have you tried opening each conversation and scrolling all the way through each one?

How about syncing with iTunes on your computer?
Turning iMessage off/on?