iPhone IMessage “Badge” notifications incorrect -- SOLVED

[milleron]

On iOS 13 for iPhone, but not on iPad, the home-screen iMessage icon on my Xs Max displays the little red numerals indicating unread messages when there are none there. I can make them vanish by unchecking "Badge" in Messages preferences, but then, of course, I'll no longer see the icon notifications when there actually are unread messages. The banner notifications work properly.

 

[danmart]

Do you have ‘filter unknown senders’ turned on? I’ve had unread messages ’hide’ there before now.

 

[milleron]

Hmmm . . . please explain what you mean by "hide." I certainly have no messages from unknown senders that show in Messages.

 

[danmart]

If you received iMessages from unknown senders, and have the ‘Filter Unknown Senders’ option turned in, then those will go into the Unknown Senders tab. This happens very rarely in my experience, so I find it easy to forget that there might be messages in that tab.

So, they might result in you having unread messages which you don’t immediately spot, with the associated badge. It has happened to me with earlier versions of iOS.

 

[milleron]

Ah, yes. I see. I have noticed that tab before, but completely forgot about it. That was exactly the problem. There were, indeed, a couple of filtered messages there, and deleting them got rid of the troublesome badge notification. Thanks a million.

 

[jmuscato]

Thank you! I just upgraded to iOS 14 and I guess it turned on the “unknown sender”
Filter. I didn’t notice that the header was ow labeled “Known”. In iOS 13 I think there were 2 columns. Now you have to swipe to see the others.