NEWER UPDATE:
The trick is to activate Siri on the Mac if she isn't already, and then say "Siri read me my unread messages". It dug out 6 messages from years ago that were for whatever reason not showing up in the Messages app
I found a few partial solutions to my Mac (Ventura 13.4) always showing 6 Unread Messages (none of my other devices showed any) on the Dock but either they weren't doable as listed or didn't work.
I believe the steps were: (after making sure that indeed, all messages seemed to be read)
- Quit Messages (after making sure that all messages do indeed seem read - you should be able to go to View | Unread Messages)
- Go to System Settings | Notifications
- Scroll down to Messages and click to open the panel
- Turn off "Badge application icon"
- In terminal window, click "killall Dock" (I suspect you might be able to use Force Quit Finder? but I haven't tested that way) The Dock should go away then bounce back.
- Start up Messages
- Turn "Badge application icon" back on
Good luck!
UPDATE: I lied. At the next message I got the number popped back up to 7. The ghost messages must be living in iCloud land...
Thank you for publishing this technique! One trick that has worked for me running into the same bug was right-clicking on the Messages app in the Dock. It actually shows which messages the badge was related to, so you can click to jump straight to that message, which marks it as read. Repeating that action with the remaining unread messages usually cleared for me.
ReplyDeleteWeirdly I don't see any message-specific information when I right click...
ReplyDeleteThe app has to be open before it does show up. Here is a screenshot of what it looks like with some unread messages in my iMessage: https://share.cleanshot.com/nVmmNpxB
ReplyDeleteI finally found the real secret: enable Siri on the Mac if she isn't already, and ask her to read unread messages. It gets to things the App seemingly can't see (except for the icon badge, natch)
ReplyDeleteWhaaaat. Who would have thought that Siri would have actually useful functionality LOL.
ReplyDelete