What is this red dot on the Settings icon?

Apple is pushing for users to activate Two-factor-Authentication, and if you don't have TFA activated the red dot could be referring to this. Open Settings and tap on your name at the top. Then tap on "Password & Security" (you'll be asked for your Apple ID password). Now you can see if TFA is activated. If it isn't, and you don't want to activate it, still tap on "Activate", and on the next screen tap immediately on "Cancel" at the upper left. Exit back out of Settings and re-start your phone. The annoying red badge should now be gone. I had this after updating to iOS 12, and for the moment do not want to use TFA. Hope this helps you! Regards, Ian.

If there's no setting or change that you're being prompted to update, you can clear this by opening Settings and then your Apple ID (top of Settings). Sign out of your ID at the bottom, restart your iPhone, then sign back in and this usually clears (again, only if there is no other action that the "1" indicates).

I have TFA enabled but still see the notification.

No sub-items within Settings indicate a notification. I have restarted the phone twice.

I would rather not Reset All Settings or sign out of iCloud because of the settings that would be lost.

Any other ideas on what might be causing it?

SLO_Boarder wrote:

I would rather not Reset All Settings or sign out of iCloud because of the settings that would be lost.

Signing out of iCloud does not cause a loss of settings, and things that you have saved in iCloud will re-sync back once you sign back in (so when prompted, you can even choose to delete such items). My wife's account has 2FA enabled and she had this issue, but signing out of iCloud (and restarting the iPhone) resolved this.

What can you see opening Settings, and tapping on the various options?

Regards

Giulio

You‘re welcome, glad to have helped! By the way, I had the same red dot issue after updating my iMac to macOS Mojave...! Ian.

Setting, General , Reset , Reset all settings .

the annoying red dot disappears.

Signing out and signing back in to iCloud did the trick (no restart needed).

Thanks!

Good! (and good to know, I always throw in a restart for good measure)

Mine is an i8, my 1st trial was that way, yet the red dot remained.

I tried this and two factor was on already. Dot still there grrrr

Just had this after updating to 12.1.2 today and signing out of iCloud and back in worked (didn't have to restart). Thanks!