WhatsApp will automatically clear its unread message count badge on every run
WhatsApp is testing automatically clearing the unread message count badge on its icon every time you open the app to reduce clutter on your Home Screen.
WABetsInfo first reported about this. Meta is currently testing the new setting in the WhatsApp Beta for iOS and Android. It’s available to some beta testers and will be rolled out to more people over the coming days.
Those who already have the upcoming feature and are using the WhatsApp Beta via TestFlight can select the Settings tab and open the Notifications section. Here, you’ll find a switch labeled “Clear Badge” under the new Home Screen Notifications reading. When this toggle is enabled, WhatsApp will automatically clear the notification count on its Home Screen icon whenever you open the app.
WhatsApp will clear its unread message count badge
The feature’s description reads, “Your Home Screen badge clears completely after every time you open the app.” The icon badge clears itself whether you’ve read unread messages. In other words, this setting ensures WhatsApp’s icon badge only displays the number of unread messages since you last opened the app, “providing an ongoing snapshot of what still needs attention,” says WABetaInfo.
In other words, the badge won’t reflect your older unread messages already acknowledged. Instead, you’ll start fresh with a zero unread message count every time you use the app, making it much easier to keep track of new messages.
Conversely, disabling the toggle ensures the badge count is refreshed after each view rather than cleared. This is how the app currently works. In other words, turning off the Clear Badge setting will prompt WhatsApp to display the number of all missed calls and unread messages you have, new or old, on its icon badge.
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Meta has been testing other WhatsApp features recently, including showing Instagram profiles and other social media links on user profiles, support for logging into multiple accounts on a single iPhone a more. As of recently, WhatsApp supports Meta’s single sign-on login, meaning the app is now available alongside Facebook, Instagram and Quest as a login option in Meta’s Accounts Center
I find those icon badges annoying
The upocming WhatsApp toggle is a smart feature, I wish more apps would adopt it. Waking up to a Home Screen littered with red icon badges gives me instant anxiety, and the first thing I usually do before even getting out of bed is open apps and mark notifications as read, which prompts apps to clear their badge count.
That’s especially the case with messaging apps, which bombard me with dozens of notifications on any given day. I don’t respond to every text right away; some messages can wait until tomorrow. What I don’t want is for yesterday’s unread messages to increase the badge count. I don’t have this setting yet, but I will make sure to use it when WhatsApp rolls it out to all users.
The icon badge is available to all apps that choose to support it. The little red dot in the corner of apps’ Home Screen icons with a white digit inside indicating the number of unread notifications—that’s your icon badge. You see a badge on the Phone app’s icon when you have missed calls. Similarly, the Messages app shows the number of unread messages on its icon badge.
Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/02/18/whatsapp-unread-message-count-automatic-clear-test/
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