When I went to GitHub.com, a nice little blue dot would appear next to the Messages icon whenever there was something new — a notification, a mention, or anything that needed my attention.
But for a while, that blue dot got stuck.
Even after checking every notification and inbox tab, it just wouldn’t go away.
After some searching, I found this Stack Overflow thread, which linked to an official GitHub support reply that explained the cause:
The issue you are experiencing is a known bug that often occurs when you receive notifications from accounts that have been suspended or marked as spammy. Our engineering team is aware of this issue and is actively working to address it.
The workaround they suggested finally fixed it — by marking all notifications as read using the GitHub Activity API.
Run this command in Terminal, replacing $TOKEN with your personal access token:
bash
curl -X PUT -H "Authorization: token $TOKEN" https://api.github.com/notifications
After running that, the blue dot disappeared instantly.
It was such a small thing, but weirdly satisfying.
How to get a GitHub token with notifications scope
Here's the quick way:
- Go to GitHub → Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Tokens (classic).
- Click Generate new token (classic).
- Give it a name, set an expiry date, and check the notifications scope (plus anything else you actually need).
- Click Generate token and copy it -- you'll only see it once.
That's it. Paste it into the command above and watch the blue dot vanish.