How to get rid of phantom Messages badges on a Mac

I sit in front of a Mac all day (like you probably do), so I rely on notifications a lot, especially to communicate with co-workers, friends, and family. The problem I’ve been having, however, is that the Messages app often fakes me out with phantom unread messages, leaving me frustrated and confused.

Here’s what happens: The Messages icon in the Dock shows a red “1” badge, indicating that there’s a new message. But when I open Messages, there’s nothing new, and worse, the badge won’t go away. So I go back to work for a while, pull up the Dock, see the badge (again), and think I have a new message (again). The badge usually goes away when I restart my Mac, but that’s not something I like to do all that often.

At first, I found the way to get rid of the badge accidentally. After it popped up again, I accidentally right-clicked on the app icon in the Dock (with two fingers on the trackpad, right-click or Control-click on a mouse), which opened up the pop-up options menu. under the New Message option at the top of the menu was a tally of my messages with a notification that one was unread. I clicked it, and a blank conversation appeared that was apparently tricking the app into thinking I had an unread message. I deleted it and the badge disappeared.

But then that fix stopped working. So I had to resort to another fix that isn’t so convenient, but it does work. It involves syncing Messages with iCloud. HEre’s what to do:

1. Open System Settings and click on your Apple Account at the very top of the left column.
2. In the main window, click on iCloud.
3. Click on Messages.
4. Click on Sync Now.

This performs a Message sync with iCloud and it should clear up the phantom badge. It’s not really a fix for my problem–there’s clearly a bug in Messages on my Mac that’s causing this—but until an update fixes it, I can at least clear the phantom badge and get back to work.

Today I Learned is a Macworld column that spotlights lesser-known but useful tips and tricks for Apple users. If you have any ideas for future columns, send an email to michael_simon@idg.com.