What is the Red Dot on the Discord Icon and How Do I Fix It?

Discord is an app that provides millions of users with text and speech chat services. It connects both gamers and non-gamers alike with personalized discussion servers to share their opinions.

Any frequent user of Discord would have seen a red dot on their discord icon at least once. So, what is this red dot and how do I deal with it?

What’s a Red Dot?

Well, that depends on where you see it. Long story short, if you see a red dot inside the Discord application itself, then it’s a Status badge. If you see it on your Windows taskbar, then it’s an unread message notification icon.

Status

Discord marks any users depending on how they want to be seen online. Whenever you log-in, your username will display a dot in the lower left corner of the screen, indicating status. Your friends and other users in any server you belong to will be able to see this. A red icon with a line indicates that you don’t want to be disturbed. Other statuses are indicated as below.

You can modify your status by clicking on your portrait in the lower left corner of the Discord screen. A menu will pop up letting you choose which status you want to be seen as. The Custom Status option allows you to display an emoticon along with your custom message.

Do note that if your custom message is too long, it won’t be seen by people unless they hover their mouse pointer over it. You can show up to nine characters before the rest of it is hidden.

On the Taskbar

A red dot on the Discord icon when it’s on the taskbar is a different story. Simply put, the dot is a notification that you have unread messages. If you’re currently not on the Discord application window and someone messages you, this will alert you that you have a message. This also applies to any pinned messages to any server you’ve joined.

Removing the Dot

So how do you remove it? The simple solution is to read all your messages. After all, you won’t get an unread notification icon if you don’t have unread messages. Open any messages that you may have, and mark them as read. If you’re in a public server that constantly gives alerts, then leave it. If the dot is still there, then you still have an unread message.

Removing the Dot Permanently

Now, this is a more involved process. You have several ways of doing it. You can either prevent notifications on the entire Discord application or mute specific servers. Nuking the notifications for the application means you’ll never get any (and thus, no red dot). This is fine if you don’t really care about messages anyway. However, if you want to be notified by specific servers, muting servers you don’t care about is more advisable.

To disable notifications entirely, open your User settings. This can be done by clicking on the gear icon beside your username.

Clicking this will open the User Settings menus. Under the App Settings menu click on Notifications.

Once you’re there, click on the switch beside the Enable Unread Message Badge menu. This will disable notifications, meaning you’ll never have to see that dreaded red dot ever again.

Now, if you don’t really mind getting a notification, but don’t want it for every single server you’re in, then muting is a better option. Muting means that you won’t get notifications for specific servers but get them for others.

To mute a specific server, right click on the server name and choose Mute Server as shown below.

You can also mute individual categories or channels within the server itself. Just click on the category or channel name and choose how long you want it muted for.

Doing this will now prevent these specific channels from sending you notifications. Any channel that’s unmuted will still be able to alert you of unread messages.

I Want the Dot but It’s Not There

The opposite problem can sometimes happen. People want to get notified of unread messages but Discord doesn’t give them alerts. Surprisingly, this is more a Windows Taskbar problem than a Discord app problem. If you check to see if your Notifications Settings on Discord are enabled but still get no red dot, it may be disabled on the taskbar. To do this on Windows 10, you can follow these instructions:

1. Click on the Start Icon on your Taskbar.
2. Click on Settings.
3. Click on Personalization.
4. Click on Taskbar.
5. Make sure that the switch for Show badges on taskbar buttons are on.
   

If Discord still fails to display a red dot, even after enabling badges in the Windows taskbar, try restarting your PC. If this still fails to fix the problem, then you may have a software error. Software errors can become serious, and you’d be well advised to visit either the Discord or Windows customer service pages.

A Useful Reminder

Discord’s red dot notification may be annoying to some, but it does serve a purpose. It’s a quick and useful reminder that messages have remained unread. Discord has options to turn this off for people that want to do so, and we have provided you with the simplest methods available.

Do you find the Discord red dot useful? Would you rather not have it on your taskbar? Do you have other ways of disabling the notification settings that you think are better? Share your thoughts and experiences with the community in the comments section below.