Taskbar Badges in Windows 11 and 10: What They Mean, Turn Them On or Off, and Fixes

Taskbar badges are the small counters and symbols that appear on app icons in the taskbar, such as the number of unread emails on Mail or Outlook, or a status dot on a chat app. To turn them on or off in Windows 11, open Settings, Personalization, Taskbar, expand Taskbar behaviors, and check or clear Show badges on taskbar apps. In Windows 10, it is Settings, Personalization, Taskbar, Show badges on taskbar buttons. The switch covers every app at once; to quiet a single app, use that app's own notification or unread-count settings. If badges are not showing or not updating, check that the switch is on, the app's notifications are allowed, the app can run in the background, and restart File Explorer.

Ethan likes a calm screen when he writes, and the red counters on his taskbar were the opposite: 312 unread newsletters on Outlook, a dot on Teams, a number on the Store icon. He asked Jake to get rid of them all. Ethan's colleague had the opposite problem: Teams never showed a count, and she kept missing messages. Jake turned badges off in one click for Ethan, and for the colleague found Teams' notifications switched off in Windows, which also stops its badge. This page explains what each kind of badge means, how to turn them on and off in Windows 11 and 10, how to control them app by app, the related badges on Start and Widgets, and how to fix badges that will not appear or will not go away.

What taskbar badges are

A badge is a small overlay on an app's taskbar icon that tells you something without opening the app. The most familiar is a number, such as a count of unread emails or new messages, shown in a small colored circle at the corner of the icon. Badges can also be symbols: a dot or exclamation mark meaning something needs your attention, or a status symbol in chat apps showing whether you are available or busy. They arrived with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update in 2016, borrowed from phones, where app icon badges had long been common.

Badges come from the apps themselves. An app decides when to show a number and what it counts; Windows simply draws it. That is why the counts differ from app to app: Outlook may count every unread email in your inbox, while a chat app counts only messages that mention you. Two apps for the same service can even disagree, such as a mail app counting all folders while the web version counts only the inbox. It is also why a badge can be wrong or stuck, since it depends on the app updating it.

There are two technical kinds, and the difference matters when a badge will not go away. Apps from the Microsoft Store and many modern apps use Windows' own badge notifications, which the Windows switch controls. Some traditional desktop programs instead draw their own overlay icon on their taskbar button, a small picture placed over the corner of the icon. Those overlays are part of the program, so the most reliable way to turn them off is in that program's settings.

What each badge symbol means

Number badges are self-explanatory, but the symbol badges are not, and most people have never been told what they mean. Apps that use Windows' built-in badges can choose from a fixed set of small symbols, called glyphs, each with an intended meaning. Apps do not always use them exactly as intended, but this table covers what each one is meant to signal.

Number badges cap out at 99 and then show 99+, so a badge reading 99+ could mean a hundred unread items or ten thousand. A symbol badge of Error on a sync or storage app is worth acting on, since it often means files are not being backed up. The others are informational and safe to ignore if you prefer.

Badge colors follow Windows and the app rather than the meaning, so do not read too much into a red versus a blue circle. Numbers usually sit on a colored dot that matches the app or your accent color, and symbols are drawn in white on that dot. If a badge is hard to see against your taskbar, switching between light and dark mode, or changing the accent color, often makes it stand out more clearly.

Turn taskbar badges on or off in Windows 11

1. Right-click an empty area of the taskbar and choose Taskbar settings, or open Settings, Personalization, Taskbar.
2. Scroll down and expand Taskbar behaviors.
3. Clear Show badges on taskbar apps to hide badges, or check it to show them.

The change applies immediately to every app that uses Windows badges. Nothing else changes: notifications still pop up and still appear in the notification center, and apps keep counting in the background. You do not need to restart or sign out; the badges vanish the moment you clear the box, and reappear the moment you check it again, which makes it easy to compare the two and decide which you prefer. If you turn badges back on later, the current counts reappear. For Ethan, this one checkbox removed every counter from his taskbar, and his notifications still arrived for the things he cares about, such as meeting reminders.

The same Taskbar behaviors section holds other settings that affect how busy your taskbar looks, including taskbar alignment, automatically hiding the taskbar, and flashing of taskbar apps when they need attention. Turning off Show flashing on taskbar apps, where available, together with badges, gives the calmest taskbar Windows 11 offers.

Many people never know the setting exists, because Windows turns badges on by default. If you set up a new PC and suddenly see red numbers you did not have before, nothing is wrong; the apps you signed in to simply started counting. The checkbox is the whole fix if you do not want them.

Badges are a per-user setting. On a family PC, each person chooses for their own account, so a parent can keep badges on for email while a teenager turns them off, or the other way round. Changing the switch in one account does not affect anyone else, and nobody needs administrator rights to change their own.

Turn taskbar badges on or off in Windows 10

1. Right-click the taskbar and choose Taskbar settings.
2. Find Show badges on taskbar buttons.
3. Turn the switch off to hide badges, or on to show them.

In Windows 10, badges appear only when taskbar buttons are a normal size. If Use small taskbar buttons is turned on, badges are not shown, whatever the badge switch says. That catches people out when they shrink the taskbar and then wonder where their unread counts went; turn small buttons off to see them again. Windows 11 shows badges at every taskbar size it supports.

Windows 10 reached end of support in October 2025, with security updates continuing for home PCs enrolled in Extended Security Updates until October 2027. The badge setting itself has not changed in years and works the same on every version.

On Windows 10 with Mail and Calendar or other Store apps, the badge on a pinned tile in the Start menu and the badge on the taskbar come from the same app update, so if one shows the right count and the other does not, the taskbar is the part that needs refreshing. Restarting File Explorer usually brings them back in line.

Turn badges off with the registry or a script

The badge switch is stored as a per-user registry value, which is useful for scripts or for setting up several accounts. The value is TaskbarBadges, a DWORD under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced. A value of 0 hides badges and 1 shows them. From Command Prompt, signed in as the user:

reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v TaskbarBadges /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Restart File Explorer, or sign out and back in, for the change to show. Because the value is under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, it affects only the account that runs the command; each family member or employee has their own setting. In an organization, the same value can be applied to users through Group Policy Preferences or a device management tool. For one PC, the Settings switch is simpler and does the same thing.

How apps set badges (for developers and the curious)

Knowing how badges work explains most of their quirks. Modern Windows apps send a tiny badge update to Windows through the notification system: a number, or the name of one of the glyphs above. Windows draws it on the taskbar icon and keeps it there until the app sends a new value or clears it. If the app crashes or is closed before clearing the badge, the last value can linger, which is one reason stuck badges happen.

Traditional desktop programs use a different mechanism: they set an overlay icon on their own taskbar button, a small image Windows places over the corner of the program's icon. That is how many older programs and cross-platform apps show unread dots on Windows. Because the program draws its own image, the Windows badge switch may not affect it, and only the program's settings remove it. Developers building apps with cross-platform frameworks usually choose the overlay approach on Windows, since numeric badge counts are handled differently on each operating system.

For users, the practical point is simple: if the Windows switch hides a badge, it was a Windows badge; if the badge survives the switch, it is an overlay belonging to the program, and the fix lives in that program.

Turn off badges for one app only

Windows has a single switch for all badges, so to keep some badges and lose others, you work in the apps. Most popular apps have a setting for their unread count or their notifications that also controls the badge.

Turning off an app's notifications in Windows also usually stops its badge, because badges are part of the notification system for most modern apps. Open Settings, System, Notifications, and turn off the app in the list. The trade-off is that you also lose its pop-ups, so this suits apps you check on your own schedule. For Ethan's newsletter count, a rule that moved newsletters to their own folder dropped the Outlook badge from 312 to a handful, which he decided he could live with. Our full guide to turning notifications on or off covers the per-app settings in detail.

Badges from web apps installed from Edge or Chrome

Websites installed as apps from Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome can show badges too. Web apps such as mail, chat and calendar services can use a browser feature for app badges, and once installed, their taskbar icon shows an unread count just like a native app. Outlook on the web and many chat services installed this way display counts, which surprises people who expected an installed website to behave like a plain browser tab.

These badges follow the same Windows switch, and the web app's own notification settings control what it counts. If an installed web app shows a badge you do not want, look in the web app's settings for notifications or unread counts first. If you uninstall the web app, its taskbar button and badge go with it, but the website itself works as before in the browser. Our guide to pinning websites to the taskbar shows how to install and remove them.

Badge settings in popular apps

Several widely used desktop apps have their own badge or unread-indicator settings, separate from Windows. In Discord, open User Settings, Notifications, where Enable Unread Message Badge controls the red counter on the taskbar icon and Enable Taskbar Flashing controls the orange flash. In Slack, the notification preferences include an option to show a badge on the app's icon for new activity, which you can turn off while keeping notifications for direct messages.

Microsoft's own apps follow a similar pattern: Teams lets you choose which activity notifies you, which in turn decides what the badge counts, and muting a busy channel or chat removes it from the count. For mail apps, the badge almost always counts unread messages in the inbox, so the cure for a large number is mail management, such as rules, focused inbox or marking newsletters as read, rather than a setting. If an app has no badge option, turning off its notifications in Windows is the fallback, at the cost of its pop-ups.

Taskbar badges not showing or not updating

When badges should appear but do not, work through these causes in order. First, the switch: check Show badges on taskbar apps in Windows 11, or Show badges on taskbar buttons in Windows 10, and on Windows 10 make sure small taskbar buttons are off. Second, the app's notifications: if the app is turned off in Settings, System, Notifications, its badge usually disappears too, which was the cause for Ethan's colleague and Teams. Third, the app is not running or not allowed to run in the background: many apps update their badge only while running, so if the app is closed or blocked from background activity, the count freezes or disappears.

Fourth, the app is not pinned or not open: badges appear on taskbar buttons, so an app that is neither pinned nor running has nowhere to show one. Fifth, Explorer has a stale state: restart File Explorer from Task Manager, which redraws the taskbar; our guide to restarting explorer.exe shows the quick way. Sixth, the app itself has a problem: sign out of the app and back in, or update it. And seventh, a policy or tweak tool has hidden badges: check the TaskbarBadges registry value described above.

Badges that show but do not update, such as a count stuck at 3 after you have read everything, are almost always the app not refreshing its count. Opening the app and letting it sync usually clears it. If the count is wrong inside the app too, the problem is in the app's data, not Windows; for email, a folder you cannot see, such as Archive or a filtered view, often holds the unread messages being counted.

A quick way to test whether badges work at all is the Microsoft Store: if any app updates are waiting, the Store's taskbar icon shows a count when the Store is pinned or open. If the Store shows its badge but your mail app does not, the problem is that app's notifications or background permissions, not Windows. If nothing shows a badge, the switch or a policy is the cause. That two-minute test saved Jake from chasing the wrong fix on Ethan's colleague's PC.

A badge that will not go away

The opposite problem is a badge that stays when you have nothing unread. Start inside the app: look for hidden unread items in other folders, archived chats, or a different account in the same app. Many mail apps count unread messages across all inboxes, so a second account you rarely check can keep the number up. Marking everything as read in each folder, or in the app's unread filter, clears it.

If the app says there is nothing unread, close the app fully, including from the notification area near the clock if it runs there, and open it again. Then restart File Explorer. If the badge still remains, sign out of Windows and back in. A badge that survives all of that belongs to a desktop program's overlay icon, so check that program's settings, or to an app whose data needs resetting, which you can do from Settings, Apps, Installed apps, the app's Advanced options, Repair or Reset, where available. Reset clears the app's data, so for mail and chat apps, make sure your messages are stored in the account online first.

Taskbar icons wrong, blank or out of date

A related problem often shows up in the same searches: taskbar icons that are blank, show the wrong picture, or keep an old app icon after an update. Badges sit on top of those icons, so a broken icon can make it look as if the badge is wrong too. The cause is usually Windows' icon cache, a set of files where Windows keeps small copies of icons so it does not have to read them from every program each time.

The gentle fix is to restart File Explorer, which redraws the taskbar. If icons are still wrong, rebuild the icon cache: close open programs, open Task Manager, end the Windows Explorer process, then use Run new task to open Command Prompt and delete the icon cache files in your local AppData folder, %LocalAppData%\IconCache.db and the files in %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer whose names start with iconcache, then start explorer.exe again from Run new task. Windows builds fresh caches automatically, which can take a minute during which some icons look plain.

If a pinned icon is still wrong after that, unpin the app and pin it again, which creates a new shortcut with the current icon; our guide to pinning to the taskbar covers it. For a taskbar that is broken more widely, with buttons not responding or the taskbar missing, the fixes are broader: restart Explorer, install pending updates, run sfc /scannow and DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth from an administrator Command Prompt, and restart.

Other badges: Start menu, Widgets, notification center and Settings

Windows 11 puts a few other small indicators around the screen that people often call badges, and each has its own setting. On the Start menu, a dot or icon on your account picture highlights account-related suggestions, such as backing up your files or finishing account setup. Turn it off in Settings, Personalization, Start, by switching off Show account-related notifications where your version has it. On the Widgets button, a number or alert sometimes appears with weather warnings, news or other updates; the Widgets board's own settings, opened from the gear icon in the Widgets panel, include options to control those taskbar alerts. Our guide to widgets and news on the taskbar covers that panel.

Next to the clock, Windows 11 shows the number of notifications waiting in the notification center. That count goes away when you open the notification center and clear the notifications, and the Do not disturb setting in Settings, System, Notifications pauses pop-ups while you work. In Settings, small dots or labels sometimes highlight recommendations, such as new features, which disappear once you visit them.

None of these is controlled by the taskbar badge switch, which affects only app icons on the taskbar. For a completely quiet screen, Ethan's setup combines four things: taskbar badges off, flashing off, account-related notifications on Start off, and Do not disturb scheduled during his writing hours.

Dots and badges on system tray icons

Icons in the notification area, the small icons near the clock, often show their own dots or symbols: a OneDrive icon with a warning, a Windows Update icon with an orange dot when a restart is needed, a security icon with a yellow warning. These are drawn by the programs or Windows features themselves and are not taskbar badges, so the badge switch does not affect them. Most of them are worth reading, because they usually mean something needs attention, such as a sync error or a pending restart.

If you want fewer of them in view, choose which icons appear in the notification area and which stay in the overflow menu behind the up arrow, under Settings, Personalization, Taskbar, Other system tray icons. Our guide to showing or hiding taskbar and system tray icons covers each option. Hidden icons still show their alerts when you open the overflow menu, so nothing important is lost.

Badges turned off by a cleanup or tweak tool

System tweak and cleanup tools, sometimes sold as optimizers or debloaters, often turn off badges, notifications and background apps in one go. If badges stopped appearing after you ran such a tool, it probably set TaskbarBadges to 0 or turned off notifications for many apps. Turn the badge switch back on in Settings, then check Settings, System, Notifications for apps that were switched off, and Settings, Apps, Installed apps, Advanced options for background permissions on the apps you care about.

Some tools also change policies that you cannot undo from Settings, such as turning off notifications system-wide. If the Notifications page shows a message that settings are managed, a policy is in effect; the tool's own undo option is the cleanest way to reverse it. On a work PC, the same message means IT manages notifications, and badges may be limited on purpose.

Notes for IT: policies that affect badges

In managed environments, a few policies change badge behavior, and they explain cases where a user's badge switch seems to do nothing. The user policy Turn off toast notifications, under User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Start Menu and Taskbar, Notifications, stops pop-up notifications and, for many apps, the badge updates that travel with them. Policies that restrict background apps prevent apps from updating counts while closed. And deployment scripts that set the TaskbarBadges value for users override what people choose until the next time the script runs.

When users report missing badges on managed PCs, check those three before anything else. When users ask for badges to be removed across the organization, setting TaskbarBadges to 0 through Group Policy Preferences is the light-touch option, since it leaves notifications working. Ethan's office left the choice to each person, which suited a team where some people wanted the counts and others did not.

Badges with several monitors

On a PC with more than one monitor, Windows 11 can show the taskbar on every display, set under Taskbar behaviors with Show my taskbar on all displays. Badges appear wherever the app's taskbar button appears. With the option When using multiple displays, show my taskbar apps on set to the taskbar where the window is open, an app's button, and its badge, moves to the monitor where its window is. Pinned apps keep their button on the main taskbar, so their badges show there.

If a badge seems to be missing, check the other monitor's taskbar before anything else. Ethan's colleague found her missing Teams count on her second screen, where the Teams window was open, after she had looked for it on the main taskbar for a week.

From live tiles to taskbar badges

Badges in Windows began on the Start screen. Windows 8 introduced live tiles, which could show a badge number or symbol in the corner of an app's tile, and Windows 10 carried tiles over to its Start menu. The Windows 10 Anniversary Update in 2016 brought the same badges to taskbar buttons, which is when the Show badges on taskbar buttons switch appeared and when this guide was first written.

Windows 11 removed live tiles from Start entirely, so the taskbar became the main place badges appear. The switch moved into Taskbar behaviors and was renamed Show badges on taskbar apps, but the behavior is the same. The technology underneath, apps sending small badge updates to Windows, has stayed stable throughout, which is why apps written years ago still show their counts correctly today.

For people moving from Windows 10 to Windows 11, the main change to notice is where the switch lives. Windows 10 lists it directly on the Taskbar settings page, while Windows 11 tucks it inside the collapsed Taskbar behaviors section, which is why many people think the option was removed. It was not; expand Taskbar behaviors and it is there, along with alignment, auto-hide and the multiple-display options.

Badges, notifications and focus

Badges are a gentler kind of interruption than pop-up notifications. A pop-up demands attention now; a badge waits until you glance at the taskbar. Many people who find notifications distracting are happy to keep badges, because they can check them when ready. Others find the opposite: a growing red number nags more than a pop-up that disappears. There is no right answer, and Windows lets you mix them.

Some sensible combinations. For focused work, keep badges on, turn pop-ups off with Do not disturb, and glance at the taskbar between tasks. For maximum calm, turn badges off and check apps on a schedule. For people who miss messages, like Ethan's colleague, keep badges on and pop-ups on for the few apps that matter, and turn both off for everything else. The settings take two minutes to adjust, and the right mix can make a real difference to how busy a working day feels.

Taskbar badges are useful when you want a quiet hint and annoying when you want quiet. One checkbox turns them all off, the apps themselves control individual counts, and a few related settings handle Start, Widgets and the notification center. Ethan's taskbar is now clean while he writes, and his colleague sees every Teams message the moment it arrives. Same feature, opposite settings, both happy, and neither needed more than a few minutes to get there.

Revision note. Written October 3, 2026, expanding our 2016 guide to taskbar badges from the Windows 10 Anniversary Update into a complete guide for Windows 11 and 10. It covers what badges are, the switches in both versions, the registry value, per-app control, fixes for missing, frozen and stuck badges, the related indicators on Start, Widgets and the clock, and how badges fit with notifications and focus. May your taskbar tell you only what you want to know.