# Make the notifications count persistent, like on Github

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-the-notifications-count-persistent-like-on-github/63053
**Category:** UX
**Created:** [May 20, 2017, 9:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-the-notifications-count-persistent-like-on-github/63053 "2017-05-20T09:06:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Stefan\_Fairphone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/stefan_fairphone/32/119580_2.png) [@Stefan\_Fairphone](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stefan_Fairphone)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2017, 9:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-the-notifications-count-persistent-like-on-github/63053/1 "2017-05-20T09:06:26Z")

</div>

Hey everybody,

I really like the way Github handles notifications: You click on the notifications icon 🔔 and get a list of notifications. However the 🔴 stays until you’ve read or dismissed _all_ notifications.

In contrast, when I click on the notification count in Discourse, the 4️⃣ / 9️⃣ / etc. disappears at once. When I click on one of the notifications, the notification count is gone, and I might miss notifications that are buried in the “view older notifications…” screen.

What do you think? Can this behaviour be improved?

Stefan

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![blake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/blake/32/157322_2.png) [@blake](https://meta.discourse.org/u/blake)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2017, 12:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-the-notifications-count-persistent-like-on-github/63053/2 "2017-05-20T12:19:46Z")

</div>

I think the idea behind removing the count of notifications is that we don’t want to force you to click on EVERY notification to decrease the count all the way to zero to get it to disappear again.

You still shouldn’t miss any notifications because anything pending should still be highlighted in the notification dropdown and on the “view older notifications…” page.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Stefan\_Fairphone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/stefan_fairphone/32/119580_2.png) [@Stefan\_Fairphone](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stefan_Fairphone)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2017, 2:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-the-notifications-count-persistent-like-on-github/63053/3 "2017-05-20T14:35:33Z")

</div>

> I think the idea behind removing the count of notifications is that we  
> don’t want to force you to click on EVERY notification to decrease the  
> count all the way to zero to get it to disappear again.

I don’t see the problem here. Does it annoy people to see the  
notification count?

> You still shouldn’t miss any notifications because anything pending should still be highlighted in the notification dropdown and on the “view older notifications…” page.

They are, but: Given the situation that the whole list is highlighted  
(more than X notifications). When I have gone through the whole list and  
no notifications are highlighted in the dropdown anymore: Are there  
still unread notifications? I don’t actually know until I click the  
“view older notifications…”-button. Sometimes there will be further  
notifications highlighted, sometimes there won’t. Since the count is  
gone, I can’t tell beforehand.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![metroidsnes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/metroidsnes/32/187475_2.png) [@metroidsnes](https://meta.discourse.org/u/metroidsnes)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2022, 7:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-the-notifications-count-persistent-like-on-github/63053/4 "2022-07-24T19:12:18Z")

</div>

I really with there was an option in the user settings to choose if the notification count should disappear or not. In my case I would like it to be persistent i.e. be displayed as long as there are any unread notifications.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2022, 10:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-the-notifications-count-persistent-like-on-github/63053/7 "2022-07-31T22:46:12Z")

</div>

I hear you, but lets hold off a bit, we are in the middle of a big notification menu refactor where we call out notifications in each section much better.

@Osama will post here once we are ready for some beta feedback.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![rahim123](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@rahim123](https://meta.discourse.org/u/rahim123)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2024, 12:38am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-the-notifications-count-persistent-like-on-github/63053/8 "2024-01-23T00:38:09Z")

</div>

Just chiming in here to mention that I also just received a user request for persistent notifications.
