Ask HN: Undeleteable GitHub Notification

#1

Post by laktak » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 9:18 PM UTC

I have a dot on the GitHub notification that can't be cleared..

It helpfully says "1-0 of 2" notifications are shown, which in reality means the list is empty.

It's from some scam repos that mentioned me but were deleted before I could clear the notification.

Am I the only one bothered by this? How do you get rid of the dot? ;)

Re: Ask HN: Undeleteable GitHub Notification

#2

Post by benoau » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 9:51 PM UTC

You might be able to manually clear it: open your web browser inspector, clear a notification, modify that request to target the other.

Or maybe disabling / re-enabling notifications.

#3

Post by hunterirving » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 10:59 PM UTC

I've been dealing with the same issue for the last week or so, but just found a solution!

Install the GitHub CLI ("brew install gh" or similar), authenticate with your GitHub credentials ("gh auth login"), then run the following:

gh api --method PUT -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" /notifications -F read=true

Blue dot gone! :-) This marks all notifications as read, which clears the phantom notification from the deleted account.

#4

Post by gladiatr72 » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 11:18 PM UTC

You all are lucky. The one on my account tells me I'm fat.