Notifications have become an integral part of our lives. They keep us updated, help us maintain our schedule and most of all help us get the latest and greatest in news. However, companies seem to have gone over the top lately when it comes to getting your attention. Banner notifications, badges, reminders and more can take over your life very easily if not managed properly. While the introduction of Windows 11 does bring us improved notifications, you also get badges in the taskbar now, especially if you have an IM pinned to it. This can be annoying and you might want to disable it. Here’s how you can do it.
Disable badges on Taskbar
Press Windows + i on your keyboard to open the Settings app. Click on ‘Personalization’ in the left sidebar.
Now click and select ‘Taskbar’.
Click on ‘Taskbar behaviors’.
The menu should now expand giving you a couple of options. Click and uncheck the box for ‘Show badges(unread messages counter) on taskbar apps’.
Close the app and the changes should have now taken place on your taskbar. You should no longer receive badge notifications for pinned apps in your taskbar.
Still getting badges but they are not updating?
This is likely because the changes are yet to reflect in the File Explorer. This can often be the case on older systems with lower memory. You can either restart your system to fix this issue, or use the guide below to restart File Exolorer.
Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc on your keyboard to open the task manager and switch to the ‘Details’ tab.
Search for Explorer.exe and click and select the process.
Now either hit ‘Delete’ on your keyboard or click on ‘End Task’. Confirm your choice by selecting ‘End Process’.
Click on ‘File’ and select ‘Run new task’.
Type in explorer.exe and hit ‘Enter’ on your keyboard. You can also click on ‘Ok’.
And that’s it! The File Explorer should now restart and badges should no longer show up in your taskbar.
We hope you were able to easily remove badges from your taskbar in Windows 11 using the guide above. If you face any errors, feel free to reach out in the comments below.
