How to clear app notifications on iphone

The red numbers you see on your app icons are referred to as badges, and they tell you the number of unread notifications from that particular app. For many of us, the Messages app tends to have quite a large number on the badge, and its presence can get pretty annoying.

There are a couple of convenient ways to rid yourself of the red badge for Messages. Let’s take a look at them below.

How to Disable Notification Badges for the Messages App

There are several types of notifications: badges, banners, and alerts. You can either completely disable notifications or remove only the red notification badges that appear on the app icon. Here’s how to enable either of these options in your iPhone Settings:

1. Go to Settings and open Notifications.
2. Scroll down and tap on Messages.
3. To disable notifications altogether, toggle off Allow Notifications. To remove badges, turn off the toggle next to Badges.

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Option 2: Clear Recent Notification without using 3D Touch

If your device doesn't support 3D touch, you can clear a group of notifications one by one. This option applies to iPhone SE, iPhone 6, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5.

Step 1: Open Notification Center by swiping down from the top of any screen.

Step 2: Tap on

You will see all recent notifications and alerts disappear. You can repeat do Step 2 to for each notification.

Notifications haven’t been the strongest suit on iPhones and the way Apple shows notifications has remained the same for a significant part of the last decade or so. Up until iOS 15, notifications from all apps you receive would show up in an endless list that was hard to look at, let alone clear them. 

With iOS 16, Apple’s Notification Center received a revamp as you can choose to keep your alerts minimal or group them together into stacks of different apps. The redesigned Notification Center now also makes it easy to clear away notifications and in this post, we’ll help you clear notifications in every possible way.  

Related: How to Get Old Notifications View Back on iPhone on iOS 16 With ‘List View’

Contents show

• How to dismiss a notification on iOS 16
• How to clear individual notifications on iOS 16 (List view)
• How to clear individual notifications from an app on iOS 16 (Stack view)
• How to clear all notifications from an app on iOS 16 (Stack view)
• How to clear all of your notifications on iOS 16

How to dismiss a notification on iOS 16

When you’re on your Home Screen or actively using an app, all notifications you receive will show up as banners at the top unless disabled. If you wish to view this alert at a later time without it bothering you from an ongoing task, you can dismiss it by swiping the banner upwards.

This will move the notification you received to the Notification Center so that you can view it or clear it later. 

Related: iOS 16 Photo Cutout: Top 6 Ways to Create a Cutout and 4 Ways to Paste and Use it

How to clear individual notifications on iOS 16 (List view)

If you have enabled List view as the default style for your notifications to appear on your iPhone’s lock screen and Notification Center, you can clear notifications one at a time with ease. 

To clear one notification from your Notification Center, swipe downwards from the top left corner of your screen. 

If you have a new notification, it will show up at the bottom. If you wish to view older notifications, swipe upwards from an empty space on this screen. When doing this, avoid swiping up from the bottom as it will close the Notification Center instead. 

When you swipe up, you’ll see all of your past notifications in Stack or List views. To clear them all, tap on the X icon at the top of the Notification Center. 

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