Bug: ghost notifications

[jackrosenthal]

See the screenshot. I must have 5 notifications I cannot see, as the bell has the blue dot, and the pagination shows I'm viewing notifications "1-0 of 5".

Note I've tried clearing browser cache already.

[thinkjrs]

I shouldn't have any unread notifications or I have an unread notification I am unable to see. This doesn't seem device-based to me, as I'm getting the same notification behavior in the Github iOS app.

Exactly similar scenario from me @jackrosenthal:

I'm currently on Chrome 95.0.4638.54 running on an arm-based mac. I also get the same "ghost" notification via the iOS app:

[Seggan]

Can confirm, except for me its 1 notification

[kwent]

Can confirm here as well with 1 notification

[cleonardcleonardc5214]

Thanks for the sharing

[Lockszmith-GH]

Same here, not device specific, or app specific, or network environment specific.
Screenshots in the community post I asked about it (before I discovered feedback):

https://github.community/t/blue-bell-stating-you-have-unread-notifications-but-i-cant-see-or-clean-it-up/211714

[thinkjrs]

I've been careful over the last few days to monitor this and can reproduce every time I clear out my inbox checking "done" on each item.

Two observations:

• I am left with a single ghost notification on whatever device on which I cleared the notifications.
• Other devices do not show the ghost notification blue dot, but do indicate an errant inbox count, while concurrently logged in, even on the same machine. See below.

Firefox used to clear notifications:

Chrome logged in at the same time:

I can also confirm that the mobile applications behave as Chrome does, above.

[GrimLink]

I am also experiencing this bug.
I also tried to clear any browser cache, nothing works.

[pizzolante]

I also have 2 ghost notification from this repo

edit: I've revoked all my other session and still have blue dot

[Seggan]

Where?

[Lockszmith-GH]

right my bad - this is the only way to leave feedback for GitHub - strange that they don't expose an Issues section to the world

[hanskellner]

Experiencing the same issue on Safari v15.1

Notifications bell has blue dot and count is "1-0 of 2". Clearing cache doesn't change the outcome.

[Seggan]

Now the unreads disappeared...

[Lockszmith-GH]

so whatever github did on their end, cleared up your account from this issue ?
Because it's still shows on mine.

[Seggan]

Yep. As far as I remember I did not do anything, I just noticed it randomly.

[pizzolante]

Seem solved here. If have more than 25, can truly select all and mark as read.

[Gitoffthelawn]

I have many notifications in my Inbox that I don't want moved to Done. Fortunately, I have read all of them, so none are marked as Unread.

I came up with a solution that worked better for me, and may help others too: Instead of marking a bunch of Inbox items as Done, I selected all notifications in the Inbox and marked them as Unread. I then selected them all again, and marked them as Read. This removed the troublesome stuck unread notifications caused by the GitHub bug.

The ghost repositories are still listed in the notification page's Repositories list, but I imagine they will eventually disappear as real notification cause them to get pushed out of that list.

[mschilli87]

Another option might be to (temporarily) use 'save' (bookmark) for those Inbox messages that are not 'done'.

[nxrighthere]

Thanks for the fix! This bug is so annoying.

[tqk2811]

not work for me

[tawfique02]

Awesome. It works properly. ☺️😋

[metalelf0]

Still seeing this issue on my end, and I can't fix it cause I only have 13 items in "Done". I've no clue where this ghost notification is coming from!

[CTimmerman]

Try grouping notifications by repository and using the "Mark as done" button of the repository row:

[S4GU4R0]

@Swoorup That finally worked for me too. I did this:

• Goto Done.
• Select all
• Move to inbox
• Goto Inbox
• Select all
• Mark as unread
• Mark as Done

That then finally fixed the ussue!

Thank you, that worked for me.

Some people mentioned GitHub ignoring this discussion and that bugs should be actually fixed without digging for ridiculous workarounds. I learned folks can open a ticket here: https://support.github.com/tickets/personal/0

[TimoLin]

@Swoorup That finally worked for me too. I did this:

• Goto Done.
• Select all
• Move to inbox
• Goto Inbox
• Select all
• Mark as unread
• Mark as Done

That then finally fixed the ussue!

Holy moly, you're my saver

[mschilli87]

@S4GU4R0:

...bugs should be actually fixed without digging for [...] workarounds

Digging is right word. @Lockszmith-GH posted the solution shared here in 2021 already but still people seem to miss it and come up with their own (often much more involved) solutions.

[iandoesallthethings]

@Swoorup That finally worked for me too. I did this:

• Goto Done.
• Select all
• Move to inbox
• Goto Inbox
• Select all
• Mark as unread
• Mark as Done

That then finally fixed the ussue!

Holy moly, you're my saver

AHA, I got it to work. The key is to have more than one page of notifications in your inbox so clicking select all offers to select all of them, which includes the ghost notification. Finally clear.

[metalelf0]

No unfortunately it's grouped as a single thread. Thanks anyway and sorry for the delay! Il gio 6 gen 2022, 16:15 Seggan ***@***.***> ha scritto:

…

Reply again, I marked the earlier one as done — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#6874 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AABAGR3QGOPAJ62BX5HXZP3UUWW2XANCNFSM5G3Z3G5Q> . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub>. You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[Lockszmith-GH]

and another one

[solhuebner]

Same issue / opened a ticket today

[Lockszmith-GH]

Did you try this? #6874 (reply in thread)

[solhuebner]

Thanks for the suggestions but I need to be honest here for a moment. THEY need to fix it :) There are a lot of people affected and opened tickets. Mine was half fixed by sending me API call instructions that at least got rid of the "you have new notifications" icon but the count is still off... I mean what should I expect from an MS-owned company. Have you seen their patch days? ;) The support should involve one or more of the affected people (live session), fix the crap and give them a Github badge. It COULD be so easy but they just waste our time. Sorry for the rant but this is not one of those one-person open source projects.

[Lockszmith-GH]

Oh I agree! But realistically, I doubt they will ever approach someone for a live session. It would be too easy.

[alimd]

Same issue with 4 ghost nitifications 😭

[Lockszmith-GH]

While we all really wish GitHub would fix this, realistically, by the way they ignored this thread completely, it probably will not be anytime soon.

As of now, the following is the only workaround that was succesful, but it requires you have enough notifications to switch on:
#6874 (reply in thread)

[alimd]

Thank you, yes its work for me, probably give Microsoft's kids the responsibility of making github notifications ;)

[djc]

I filed a GitHub support issue about this and got a response with a pretty good workaround:

The curl command below will mark all of your notifications as read and, with any luck, will take care of that phantom message for you.​

curl -X PUT
    -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \
    -H "Authorization: token $TOKEN" \
     https://api.github.com/notifications \
    -d '{"last_read_at":"2022-05-31T00:00:00Z"}'

A few things to note:

• In order to use this command a Personal Access Token (PAT) will be required and $TOKEN needs to be replaced by a personal access token you can create here: https://github.com/settings/tokens/new. Creating a Personal Access Token also has the steps to create a token. After it is created, replace $TOKEN in the command with your new PAT.
• Note: Please ensure that the PAT has the notifications scope.
• Please update the date and time to your current date and note the time values must be in ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ.

Cleaned up my ghost notification at least!

[neoneye]

The curl command didn't work for me. I still see the unread notification badge.

[answer-huang]

Thank you!!! This is save my life.

[ElijahLynn]

This is a bad work around if it marks ALL notifications as read. What if I have notifications that I want to read? Bad support from GitHub.

[will-lamerton]

Check out this solution, it only uses the gh CLI (no access token, no minimum number of done notifications) https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/6874#discussioncomment-14737364

This worked 🔥

[HumbleDeer]

This is a bad work around if it marks ALL notifications as read. What if I have notifications that I want to read? Bad support from GitHub.

That's an unrelated factor 😅 This method and resolution is about resolving the issue of the marking dot that indicates unread messages when there are in fact none. If you've got messages you want to read in your inbox, they would indeed be marked as read, but you're not by any means disallowed from reading those notifications first before applying the resolution for the phantom notification issue.

Keep in mind that this workaround can't actually mark only the "phantom ones" because they're phantom. It is just overriding it by not having to specifically name the objects that are causing it to show as unread. The workaround might as thus seem bad to you and irresponsible support from GitHub, but you'll still have to deal with it. There's not really any way around it until the underlying bug is resolved, which is not something within GitHub Support's reach.

Furthermore, there's no substantive harm done.

[jianchang512]

The deleted Curry @ a lot of people, which caused it. It’s hard to imagine that it’s been a bug for 4 years and it’s not fixed.

[Gitoffthelawn]

It’s hard to imagine that it’s been a bug for 4 years and it’s not fixed.

It's Microsoft. Image it. It's been over 10 years, and Microsoft still hasn't been able to dark theme the control panel in Windows 10 or Windows 11.

Any competent programmer could get that done in no time. Heck, they could just sub-contract it out, and get it done for less than the cost of a single executive retreat. Much less. Their actions (and inactions) make their priorities clear, and to me, it seems that quality software isn't at the top of the list. But their executives sure do live nicely!

[matifali]

For anyone still facing this use

gh api /notifications -X PUT -f last_read_at="$(date -u +"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ")"

[mschilli87]

Or simply this. 😉

'Simply' because the above assume gh being installed and setup including API access, which requries way more than five clicks.

[danielhoherd]

Extending this gh api code a bit, you can mark only the spam notifications as read while leaving all your other notifications in tact. This does not clear them out of the sidebar, but it does keep them from showing up as unread:

gh api /notifications -X GET |
  jq -r '.[] | "\(.id) \(.repository.full_name)"'

Then find the ID of the notifications of the jerks who spammed you and run…

gh api /notifications/threads/19172999942 -X PATCH

Then ask yourself why a $4 trillion dollar company can't do this for all of us even when our companies pay them money.

If Github was opensource this problem would be fixed by now.

[shirokagemaru]

Yes, this worked for me perfectly. I have much thanks to you! I haven't had issue since performing these steps. ❤️

[gruvw]

I have a fix that just uses the gh CLI tool: gh api /notifications -X GET | jq -r '.[].id' | xargs -I {} gh api /notifications/threads/{} -X PATCH

No need for a minimum of done notifications or to generate an access token, just running the command above got rid of ghost notifications for me.

[k0pernikus]

@ctntc @gruvw Thank you so much, this

gh api /notifications -X GET | ConvertFrom-Json | ForEach-Object { gh api "/notifications/threads/$($_.id)" -X PATCH }

finally removed my ghost notification I was stuck with for years!

[QuantumChemist]

PowerShell Version for those not on Linux (courtesy of Copilot):

gh api /notifications -X GET | ConvertFrom-Json | ForEach-Object { gh api "/notifications/threads/$($_.id)" -X PATCH }

bro, thank you so much. That was really convenient. :D

[andy3520]

thank you so much, its so annoying to me, I got add to some phishing repo and its get delete by github but the notification stuck there, I already resolved the notification with this but idk why the repo name still stuck on the left sidebar, do anyone know how to completely remove it

[Efreak]

thank you so much, its so annoying to me, I got add to some phishing repo and its get delete by github but the notification stuck there, I already resolved the notification with this but idk why the repo name still stuck on the left sidebar, do anyone know how to completely remove it

You need to delete the notification, not just mark it as read. Use the following commands:

List all notifications, sorted by repository:

gh api /notifications?all=true -X GET | jq -r "map({(.id): .repository.full_name}) | add | to_entries | sort_by(.value) | from_entries"

Delete a notification:

gh api /notifications/threads/{} -X DELETE

example:

❯ gh api /notifications?all=true -X GET | jq -r "map({(.id): .repository.full_name}) | add | to_entries | sort_by(.value) | from_entries"
{
  "19168563315": "funds-paradigm/paradigm",
  "19107153684": "gitcoinnotifypromo/gitcoincodao",
  "19162255555": "community/community",
  "19169465555": "community/community"
}
❯ gh api /notifications/threads/19168563315 -X PATCH
❯ gh api /notifications/threads/19107153684 -X PATCH
❯ gh api /notifications?all=true -X GET | jq -r "map({(.id): .repository.full_name}) | add | to_entries | sort_by(.value) | from_entries"
{
  "19168563315": "funds-paradigm/paradigm",
  "19107153684": "gitcoinnotifypromo/gitcoincodao",
  "19162255555": "community/community",
  "19169465555": "community/community"
}
❯ gh api /notifications/threads/19168563315 -X DELETE
❯ gh api /notifications/threads/19107153684 -X DELETE
❯ gh api /notifications?all=true -X GET | jq -r "map({(.id): .repository.full_name}) | add | to_entries | sort_by(.value) | from_entries"
{
  "19162255555": "community/community",
  "19169465555": "community/community"
}

After the PATCH commands above, the two issues have been marked as read, but the repos still show in the sidebar as the notifications still exist on your account; after deleting the notifications, they no longer exist and the repo disappears.

note that I'm performing these commands on Windows, hence the double quotes

[andy3520]

thank you so much, its so annoying to me, I got add to some phishing repo and its get delete by github but the notification stuck there, I already resolved the notification with this but idk why the repo name still stuck on the left sidebar, do anyone know how to completely remove it

You need to delete the notification, not just mark it as read. Use the following commands:

List all notifications, sorted by repository:

gh api /notifications?all=true -X GET | jq -r "map({(.id): .repository.full_name}) | add | to_entries | sort_by(.value) | from_entries"

Delete a notification:

gh api /notifications/threads/{} -X DELETE

example:

❯ gh api /notifications?all=true -X GET | jq -r "map({(.id): .repository.full_name}) | add | to_entries | sort_by(.value) | from_entries"
{
  "19168563315": "funds-paradigm/paradigm",
  "19107153684": "gitcoinnotifypromo/gitcoincodao",
  "19162255555": "community/community",
  "19169465555": "community/community"
}
❯ gh api /notifications/threads/19168563315 -X PATCH
❯ gh api /notifications/threads/19107153684 -X PATCH
❯ gh api /notifications?all=true -X GET | jq -r "map({(.id): .repository.full_name}) | add | to_entries | sort_by(.value) | from_entries"
{
  "19168563315": "funds-paradigm/paradigm",
  "19107153684": "gitcoinnotifypromo/gitcoincodao",
  "19162255555": "community/community",
  "19169465555": "community/community"
}
❯ gh api /notifications/threads/19168563315 -X DELETE
❯ gh api /notifications/threads/19107153684 -X DELETE
❯ gh api /notifications?all=true -X GET | jq -r "map({(.id): .repository.full_name}) | add | to_entries | sort_by(.value) | from_entries"
{
  "19162255555": "community/community",
  "19169465555": "community/community"
}

After the PATCH commands above, the two issues have been marked as read, but the repos still show in the sidebar as the notifications still exist on your account; after deleting the notifications, they no longer exist and the repo disappears.

note that I'm performing these commands on Windows, hence the double quotes

Thanks, its work
I use below to get the id

gh api "/notifications?all=true" \
| jq -r '.[] | select(.repository.full_name == "gitcoinco-mail-notification/gitcoin.com"
                   or .repository.full_name == "notify-chains/gitcoin.com"
                   or .repository.full_name == "ping-paradigm/paradigm") | .id'

and then use your suggestion to delete it

gh api /notifications/threads/19168178933 -X DELETE
gh api /notifications/threads/19105329616 -X DELETE
gh api /notifications/threads/19089121510 -X DELETE

[nuintun]

Does anyone know how to fix the issue with Subscriptions? I have unsubscribed from all Subscriptions, but it still shows that there are 6!

[Lockszmith-GH]

Did you try this?

[nuintun]

It's not working.

[millievn]

same issue now and fixed by this. https://stackoverflow.com/a/73649800/11821819

[neoneye]

I was mentioned in 3 crypto scam repos. These repos was reported and deleted. I still see notification from these deleted repos. There are 0 items in my inbox, yet the badge shows 3 notifications. There is no way to mark these as deleted or flag them.

[danielhoherd]

The move-to-inbox method worked for me in this case. https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/6874#discussioncomment-14591666

[Voltra]

It's annoying to say, but yeah the subscribing to a big repo for a few hours and then moving everything to the inbox to select absolutely all, mark them as read (and then as done) is the only "proper" way to go about getting rid of those ghost notifications fn

[jacks0n9]

microsoft FIX THIS FUCKING ISSUE

[neoneye]

The problem is that there are zero items in the inbox.

These are the repos that I was mentioned in. The notifications from these repos wont go away.

[g-i-o-r-g-i-o]

I had a ghost repo too, I solved with this

https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/6874#discussioncomment-14591666

The problem is that there are zero items in the inbox.

These are the repos that I was mentioned in. The notifications from these repos wont go away. ![Screenshot 2025-10-28 at 13 49 16](https://private-user-

[danielhoherd]

Oh nice! That "move to inbox" technique worked for me! Now don't know what issues and PRs I was supposed to respond to though.

[neoneye]

Thank you @g-i-o-r-g-i-o running the bash script that did indeed reset the notifications. Yay. Normality almost restored.

However it didn't clear the scam repos that still appears in my repositories list.

[ssomers]

Same here, after a struggle to make the gh command run.

You do need to generate an access token for gh, though it can possibly be done for you via the default method of device activation in a web browser. I initially declined because the range of permissions it requested scared me, and when I try it now, github says all is fine but gh says "Bad credentials". The alternative of entering a fine-grained token access token yields "gh: Resource not accessible by personal access token (HTTP 403)". What it needs is a classic access token, and gh requires it to have lots of access (beyond "notifications" which seemed enough to me). But you can just delete that access token once used.

[Gitoffthelawn]

Dear Microsoft:

Why hasn't Microsoft fixed this easily reproducible issue that has been well-document for years? Please select an answer below:

1. Microsoft doesn't care about developers, users, or customers.
2. Microsoft doesn't know what the letters UX stand for.
3. Microsoft is too incompetent to fix this issue.
4. Microsoft needs all their products to suck "just enough" so they don't attain a complete monopoly.

[neoneye]

So I ran this script and I got the ghost notifications cleared.

Now the repos still remain at top of my repository list. How to clear them from this list?

[g-i-o-r-g-i-o]

I had the same problem, and I run the code that I linked.

Maybe try also the other method? I didn't need it, anyway it should be: select more that 25 "done" notifications, mark them as "not done" or whatever. Then select them all and mark them done.

[Efreak]

Don't just mark them done, delete them entirely via the API

[hafiz031]

Same here.

[jzr-supove]

Executing this gh (GitHub CLI) command solves the issue for me:

gh api notifications -X PUT -F last_read_at=2025-11-05T00:00:00Z

(Replace the date with the current date)

[ElijahLynn]

this marks ALL notifications as read though yah? Some people just can't do that, they have notifications that need action and if they mark all as read that will break that workflow.

[jzr-supove]

@ElijahLynn, yep thats correct. Thats why its better to go through all the notis you have, then execute this command when only ghost notifications are left

[jzr-supove]

@ElijahLynn I'm pretty sure everyone here noticed the "ghost" notifications only after marking everything as read, yet the UI still showed a blue dot. When you have a bunch of notifications, it's impossible to tell if any ghosts are mixed in until you've gone through them or marked them all as read...

Which is why the argument that "not everyone can run the command" doesn't really make sense in this context))

[Gitoffthelawn]

@ElijahLynn I'm pretty sure everyone here noticed the "ghost" notifications only after marking everything as read, yet the UI still showed a blue dot.

Sorry, but I am 100% sure you are mistaken. How? Because I observed this bug and didn't have everything read.

When you have a bunch of notifications, it's impossible to tell if any ghosts are mixed in until you've gone through them or marked them all as read...

That is also false.

Which is why the argument that "not everyone can run the command" doesn't really make sense in this context))

It makes sense that your conclusion is incorrect given that your understanding of the facts is also incorrect.

[Lockszmith-GH]

Let's all bow to the generous and mighty @Gitoffthelawn for sharing their knowledge with us all.
Their articulation of their experience and how their opinion is not GIGO, but Gold-In-Gold-Out.
Oh, and the empathy - is 100% in tune with a community page, where people offer assistance to each other.

And @Gitoffthelawn - whatever pains you in the world, I'm sorry - but taking it out, just because nobody in real life is willing to listen to you - WTF ?! - I hope you find some peace, stop picking on other fellow humans, find an AI bot to abuse instead.

@jzr-supove pay no attention to comments like that.
Thank you for sharing.

[mortie]

How is this still a bug?

[Timmmm]

It's low priority because it doesn't involve AI in any way.

[0xDE57]

copilot says:

[TechRedByte]

I have the same problem
I tried everything, like Select all then setting all to Done, ran all the commands that other people suggested, but nothing worked
and that blue dot is irritating me

[Gitoffthelawn]

I have the same problem I tried everything, like Select all then setting all to Done, ran all the commands that other people suggested, but nothing worked and that blue dot is irritating me

You can remove that blue dot by injecting this CSS code:

.AppHeader .AppHeader-button--hasIndicator::before {
   display: none !important;
}

It won't fix GitHub's underlying bug (or appear when you have unread inbox items), but it will remove that irritation for you.

[TechRedByte]

it somehow fixed itself now (I didn't try anything since)

[helen]

These should all be repaired now, see this changelog post

If you're still seeing issues, please let us know!

[dylanmoz]

Let me know if you'd like me to leave it alone for debugging purposes or if I should try one of the fixes, I don't really mind it so whatever is most helpful

[helen]

@dylanmoz for the moment if you can leave it alone since I don't know if we'll need it there to properly investigate :) thank you so much!

[helen]

@dylanmoz A notifications engineer took a quick look and these seem to be legitimate notifications mostly from a private repo but not sure why they're not showing. The one thing you could try is making sure you're SSO-ed in to your orgs if that's applicable. I'm also happy to give you the associated org names via email (username @ github) and troubleshoot further if you want to spend that time on it. Otherwise, unfortunately yeah I think the immediate fix for you is to run one of those API commands, but we'll still take note of this as a scenario that is happening and see if we figure out what's going on (e.g. a deletion or rename or transfer case not accounted for)!

[dylanmoz]

@helen That was it! Once I SSO'd into all my orgs, it works correctly. No need for the API. So the issue is when you aren't SSO-ed into all your orgs, github will show the little blue dot notification but not display the items from that org, and the pagination is messed up

[helen]

@dylanmoz Awesome, glad we've got the right problem identified! I'll get that logged internally so we can see what we can do about it because that's definitely not good. Thanks so much for your help!