How to Turn Off App Badges on iPhone and Android

You glance at your home screen and there it is again: a little red number climbing on your mail app, your chat app, your social apps. You have already read the messages, or you plan to read them later, but the number sits there demanding attention until you open the app. That number is called a badge, and it is separate from the notification itself. You can silence the badge without silencing the app — banners, sounds, and lock screen alerts can all keep working while the little number disappears.

What a badge is, and what it is not

A badge is the small marker on an app's icon: a red number on iPhone and Samsung, a plain dot on Pixel. It tells you the app has something unread inside it. It is not the notification itself. A notification is the banner, sound, or lock screen alert that arrives in the moment; a badge is the lingering reminder that stays on the icon afterwards.

That distinction explains the two most common confusions. First, clearing notifications from the notification shade does not always clear the badge, because the badge counts unread items inside the app, not the alerts sitting in the shade. Second, turning off an app's notifications entirely is a much bigger step than turning off its badge — it kills banners and sounds too. If all you hate is the red number staring at you, the badge switch is the right tool, and it leaves everything else untouched.

On iPhone: turn off Badges for one app

iPhone controls badges per app, with no global switch. The Badges toggle sits alongside the other notification options for each app, and it only appears while that app is allowed to send notifications at all.

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Tap the app under Notification Style.
4. Turn off Badges.

The number vanishes from the icon immediately, while banners, sounds, and lock screen alerts keep working exactly as before. Repeat the same steps for every app whose badge you want gone — Mail and Messages, for example, are set independently, so you can keep the badge on Messages and hide it on a shopping app.

On iOS 18 and later there is a second route to the same switches: open Settings, tap Apps, tap the app, then tap Notifications and turn Badges off there. If you do not see a Badges switch at all, check that Allow Notifications is turned on for that app first — Apple hides the finer options, including Badges, until notifications are allowed.

On Pixel: turn off the notification dot for all apps

Pixel phones show a dot rather than a number, and Google documents a single global switch for it. There is no per-app dot switch in the current Pixel settings, so this is an all-or-nothing choice for dots — but your notifications themselves stay fully per-app.

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Turn off Notification dot on app icon.

Every dot disappears from every app icon at once. Banners, sounds, and the notification shade are unaffected, so you still get alerted the moment something arrives — you just stop being reminded about it afterwards on the home screen.

If you only want one app's dot gone and want to keep dots for everything else, Pixel's settings do not offer that split. Your realistic options are turning dots off globally, or turning off that one app's notifications entirely, which also removes its dot along with its banners and sounds.

On Samsung Galaxy: turn off badges for all apps, or one app

Samsung gives you both levels of control: a global switch, a style choice, and a per-app switch. The global switch lives in the notification settings, and its exact location moves between One UI versions — if the steps below do not match your screen, search Settings for "app icon badges" and open the matching result.

To turn off all badges:

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Tap App icon badges (on some One UI versions, under Advanced settings first).
4. Turn off the App icon badges switch.

To turn off one app's badge only:

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap Notifications, then App notifications.
3. Tap the app.
4. Turn off its badge switch.

Samsung also lets you choose how badges look while they are on: tap the App icon badges row itself (rather than its switch) and pick Show with number or Show as dot. Picking Dot does not turn badges off — it only hides the count — so if you want no marker at all, turn the main switch off rather than switching styles.

Badges on each phone at a glance

Menu names and exact wording vary by model and software version on all three platforms, so if a step does not match your screen exactly, trust the switch name — Badges on iPhone, Notification dot on app icon on Pixel, App icon badges on Samsung — and use Settings search to jump to it.

If a badge will not go away

A badge that survives the switch usually has a cause other than the switch itself.

• The app still has unread items inside it. The badge counts what is unread in the app, not what is sitting in the notification shade. Open the app and read, dismiss, or mark the items as read, then check the icon again.
• A second account or inbox is hiding unread items. Mail apps with two accounts and chat apps with archived chats can hold unread items you never see on the main screen. Check other accounts, folders, and archived chats inside the app.
• The app keeps its own counter. Some apps maintain their own unread count that the system badge setting cannot always override. Updating the app, then restarting the phone, clears most stale counters.
• The setting changed back after an update. A major software update can restore default notification settings on some phones. If badges reappear after an update, reopen the badge setting and confirm the switch is still off.

To test the switch, turn it off for one app, then send yourself a test message or wait for a real notification from that app. The banner and sound should arrive as normal, and the icon should stay clean afterwards. If the banner never arrives either, you turned off the app's notifications, not just its badge — go back and turn Allow Notifications back on, then switch off Badges only.

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