The discussion centers on the UX issue where the notification counter next to a user’s avatar disappears immediately upon opening the avatar menu, even if notifications remain unread. jidanni initiates the thread, expressing frustration that the blue indicator vanishes upon clicking their avatar, making it impossible to verify pending notifications without waiting for new ones. They compare this to systems like Yahoo Mail where counts persist until items are read. Moin explains the current logic: the indicator signifies new unseen notifications and vanishes once the menu is accessed. HamMan2118 supports this, noting the menu’s purpose is to view notifications, and links to a guide on how the system works. However, jidanni argues this is a “booby trap,” especially when users need to access Settings quickly without reviewing notifications, likening the loss of the counter to having a notification “confiscated.” sixty4bit strongly agrees, stating they rely on the persistent count for customer service PMs and that losing it causes them to miss urgent requests, leading to professional delays. While HamMan2118 suggests that deferring topics marks them as unread but doesn’t necessarily trigger the avatar counter, jidanni insists on a manual way to restore the marker. Other users like jenmck and Firepup650 suggest workarounds like bookmarking preferences or adding custom sidebar links, but the core complaint remains that the current behavior penalizes users who need to check settings or other menu items without clearing their notification status.
I was looking at my head just the other day, and got curious and clicked it.
Lo and behold there turned out to be plenty of notifications etc. there!
So it seems odd that there was no little red number or dot near my head.
Sure I know there are plenty of other notification methods.
I’m just saying that staring at my screen, if this were Facebook, and there were no red dots or anything, that would mean we were all caught up. But on Discourse it is harder to tell.
Perhaps you’ve already opened the menu? The indicator vanishes once you access the menu, regardless of whether you’ve viewed all notifications. Upon receiving another notification, the indicator will reappear, signifying that there’s a new notification awaiting your attention.
Ah, no wonder! A destructive click! And I bet there is no way to get the number (which it turns out is blue, not red) back, without waiting for new notices to arrive.
Just another booby trap it seems.
The main purpose of the counter is to show you that you have a notification you haven’t seen yet. When you open the notification menu you would probably see what you have to take a look at - which is why it would go away.
You can always open up the menu later and check notifications 
Here is a little guide on them:
OK there’s pros and cons. Yes.
Also we are able to mark things as unread,
So we should also be able to restore the notification marker next to our picture.
But if you mark a topic as unread that would not be a new notification that you’ve recieved?
I think having something that you defer pop up in your notification menu doesn’t make too much sense. Not saying it is a bad idea though 
When you defer a topic you mark it unread, so it will show in your unread list on the main screen. Unless you have a topic set as watching, if it has unread posts then it will not pop up in your notification menu.
Just my way of seeing it 
All I know is I was happy with the state of all the things I saw when I clicked my head.
I just want a way to turn back on that blue thing next to my head, no matter what.
It is fair to say this is inconsistent with some other systems.
Yahoo mail app stubbornly retains the number even if you’ve entered your inbox. The number only goes down if you actually read your emails.
Today I wanted to go to Settings.
The only way to go to Settings is to click your head, I mean my head.
Doing so zaps the blue counter.
I am in a hurry to fix one setting, I don’t have time to even glance at my notifications. If there was an eye movement tracker it could verify that I’m telling the truth.
But still my notification count is confiscated anyway.
It’s like the bathroom is located inside the theater, so you have to buy a ticket just to use it.
I guess I’ll just have to hold it in next time.
Wait. New rule for Discourse: when reporting a bug, please add one example of
OK, it’s a deal.
So having my blue notification count stolen is like Pee Wee Herman needing to walk down the corridor to get to various school offices. The same corridor occupied by Mean Mark & gang, who always steal his pencil set, because he didn’t share his cafeteria tickets with them, but he wasn’t going to the cafeteria, (also down the same corridor.)
Yeah, I know. You are going to tell me to just bookmark
Discourse Meta - The Official Support Forum for Discourse . But that is just a “cop out” solution, instead of facing the problem.
You can click on your avatar anywhere in Discourse to get to your profile and by extension, your preferences. You can click on “my posts” in the sidebar and it opens to your activity, which is found in the same menu as your preferences.
You could also add a custom sidebar link to /my/preferences, instead of bookmarking it.
There are definitely pros and cons to this behavior, but I have been bitten by the cons far more often than being thankful for the pros (which is never btw). I don’t get enough PMs for me to be worried about too many PMs. I get so few PMs that when I lose the notification I forget that I have more to look at. My PMs are actually my inbox for customer service and now I have to click on my avatar an extra time instead of just looking at the avatar to determine if I have more to answer. I basically skipped updating throughout 2025 so I didn’t get this behavior until recently. And now my members think I’m shit at my job because their requests sit for 9 days.
I understand that those with massive PM inboxes don’t want the constant reminder, but I actually need/want it.
