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What Does the Badge on an iPhone App Mean? Turn It On or Off

iPhone badges are indicators on app icons. Change them in an app’s notification settings without turning off notifications entirely.

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An iPhone badge is a small indicator on an app icon—often a number showing unread items, such as unread email in Mail. To show or hide it for an app, open Settings > Notifications, select the app, then switch Badges on or off. This changes the icon indicator, not whether the app can send notifications.

What are badges on iPhone?

Badges are indicators displayed on app icons. Apple’s example is a number above the Mail icon showing unread email. The exact information shown depends on the app.

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Apple describes the feature this way: “When you turn on Badges, certain app icons can display information.” Apple Support: Use notifications on your iPhone or iPad.

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How to turn badges on or off

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Tap Notifications, then select the app you want to change. If that route does not match your iPhone’s menus, go to Settings > Apps, select the app, then tap Notifications.
  3. Switch Badges on to show the app-icon indicator, or off to hide it.

Apple documents both navigation routes in its iPhone User Guide and notification instructions. If you cannot find the setting, use Settings search for the app’s name or “Notifications.”

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Badges and notifications are separate controls

Turning Badges off hides the indicator on the app icon; it does not by itself stop the app from sending notifications. To stop an app’s notifications, open that app’s notification settings and turn off Allow Notifications. Leave notifications enabled and disable only Badges if you want alerts without an icon indicator.

Why the Mail badge may not count every unread message

When Mail’s categories feature is in use in iOS 18.2, the Home Screen badge shows unread messages in the Primary category by default. To have it show all unread messages, Apple documents this path: Settings > Apps > Mail > Notifications > Customize Notifications > [account] > Badge Count > All Unread Messages. The account step means you choose the Mail account whose badge count you want to adjust. See Apple’s instructions for using categories in Mail.

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