92

I keep the "System Preferences" app icon in my dock in Mojave. I recently checked for updates, and found one, but I'm not ready to install it just yet and the red notification dot over the settings app is really bothering my obsessive-compulsive self.

To make things worse, there's no way to disable the notification for the settings app, from the settings app.

How can I banish the notification icon until I'm ready to deal with doing updates?

(Note: this a the red notification badge/dot over the System Preferences app, not the App Store one. It is also not the big textual one that will appear in the upper right corner of the screen. And, unlike all the other questions I found while searching for this, I am in Mac OS rather than iOS.)

The closest thing I found was Why is the System Preferences Dock icon showing a Badge?, which was about iCloud security problems rather than software updates. My question isn't why, but how to ignore a software update for a while.

System Preferences dock badge notification icon

Wyatt Ward
  • 2,102
  • 2
  • 14
  • 13

4 Answers4

101

After some unsuccessful googling, followed by loads and loads of digging and grepping through binary files, I stumbled upon a key in a .plist which, when written, appeared to make the system temporarily forget it had any updates to bother me with. Running:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences AttentionPrefBundleIDs 0

fixed my issue for now on 10.14.1 (Apparently, you may also have to restart the dock with killall Dock, but I don't remember having to do so).

It seems to work up through at least Monterey (12), too.

If you have automatic checking for updates turned on, this might not work for you. Not for long, anyway. In my case, on a fresh install, I went to the settings page to turn off checking for updates, at which time it checked for an update before I could close the page. After running that command again it went away once more, though. Basically, turn off automatic update checks, or it'll come right back and you'll have to run the command again.

Re-running the update checker should undo this. One might be able to find that .plist (I believe it was in /Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist) and set the immutable bit on it/give it read only permissions to prevent it getting modified, but I have no idea what the fallout from that could be. You'd probably not be able to change any other per-user settings anymore.

Edit: Some have suggested setting it like:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences AttentionPrefBundleIDs '{ "com.apple.preferences.softwareupdate" = 0; }'

instead. This seems to work, and is the default value on a fresh install, at least for some newer versions - but it is also more difficult to type and ultimately has the same impact, so I still just use the top version and have noticed no ill effects.

Wyatt Ward
  • 2,102
  • 2
  • 14
  • 13
  • 8
    Works for hiding the Catalina update that was released today. It appears that checking for updates will make it reappear, at least until you restart Dock again. Thanks for doing the hard work finding this default key! – CoBrA2168 Oct 08 '19 at 00:11
  • 2
    @CoBrA2168 thanks. Really wish apple did more thorough public documentation on their OS internals! – Wyatt Ward Oct 08 '19 at 14:34
  • Did this, disabled auto checking for updates, restarted dock, went away for few minutes, came back. Inside System Prefs -> Software Update, no longer listing catalina as needed, but red dot still showing. – Ray Oct 30 '19 at 16:00
  • @Ray do any of these do anything for you? `sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist LastUpdatesAvailable 0`, `sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist LastRecommendedUpdatesAvailable 0`, `sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist RecommendedUpdates` – Wyatt Ward Oct 31 '19 at 23:42
  • 3
    This also works for notifications related to iCloud – user35581 Nov 14 '19 at 15:24
  • I find that this only works for a few hours before the red dot reappears. – Alex Johnson Apr 18 '20 at 23:43
  • 2
    @Alex Johnson Did you disable automatic update checking in settings before running this? Not doing that would make it come back. You can also run `sudo softwareupdate --ignore "macOS Catalina"`, which would more permanently block the notification without disabling other update checks. If you did this and wanted to update later you'd have to run `sudo softwareupdate --reset-ignored` though. So I'd just disable all automatic update checks in the settings application instead. It'll still check whenever you go back to that screen that way. – Wyatt Ward Apr 20 '20 at 03:47
  • @Wyatt8740 I'd disabled automatic updates, but had missed disabling the *checks* for updates. For that I had to click through the Advanced button and unselect the radio button. Red dot is gone. Thanks for helping me sort it out. – Alex Johnson Apr 21 '20 at 13:06
  • @AlexJohnson NP, glad that was all it was. :) – Wyatt Ward Apr 24 '20 at 18:15
  • 1
    still working on 10.15.4 – Radu Ursache Jun 14 '20 at 09:45
  • 3
    Still works for Big Sur. I had a bubble pop up again for the Big Sur update. Went back into System Preferences → Software Update → Advanced… → Unchecked "Check for updates". Then ran @Wyatt8740's command above, then `killall Dock`, and the update bubble is gone again. – Alex Johnson Nov 13 '20 at 09:46
  • did not work for me on 10.15.7. But Blundering Ecologist's answer below did. – marathon Nov 27 '20 at 21:40
  • 2
    [Update 2022] Thank you. This works for Monterey 12.2.1. – Huyen Mar 27 '22 at 20:09
26

Here is what worked for me to get rid of the red notification ballon and still have access to System Preferences from the dock.

Replace the Systems Preferences icon on the dock with its Alias:

  1. Remove System Preferences icon from dock (either drag icon off dock or right-click on it and choose "Options" and then "Remove from Dock").

  2. In a Finder window navigate to the Applications folder, right-click on the Systems Preferences app and choose "Make Alias".

  3. Add the alias file to the dock by dragging it to the desired location on the dock.

The alias icon does not include the red notification bubble. The Systems Preference panel will still show the red notification on the Software Update icon (as shown in the partial screen shot image).

enter image description here

  • 4
    This solution only works by misdirection, and doesn't actually disable anything at the system level. :-) It *is* very clever, though. Kudos on an alternate method! – IconDaemon Oct 09 '19 at 02:44
  • 3
    Tried Terry Richmonds suggestion but Alias still has red notification – nrglog Oct 09 '19 at 01:52
  • 1
    Interesting idea; I'd done similar to make folders open in finder instead of opening up in that "speech bubble" thing in snow leopard, but I'd completely forgotten. I don't like the arrow icon, but it's a clever solution if you don't mind it appearing in the 'apple' top bar menu and when the settings app is opened. – Wyatt Ward Oct 10 '19 at 13:30
15

I found that the killall Dock solution didn't work (anytime I restarted my computer I had to run the code in Terminal again), and the Alias solution left me wanting to really figure out how to do this!

So, with some searching, here is how I've permanently handled this issue (without the need to run code in Terminal):

  1. Open system preferences
  2. Open software update
  3. Click "advanced..." (bottom right)
  4. Unclick "check for updates"
  5. Command + Q system preferences.
  6. Turn off internet.
  7. Reopen system preferences.
  8. Reopen software update.

Ta da! No red dot.

Here are those steps in photos:

Step two (red dot!!) - Open software update: enter image description here

Step three - Click "advanced..." (bottom right): enter image description here

Step four - Unclick "check for updates": enter image description here

Step six - Turn off internet: enter image description here

Step six - Reopen software update (no red dot!): enter image description here

Step seven - Turn internet back on: enter image description here

Blundering Ecologist
  • 313
  • 2
  • 6
  • 1
    I explicitly said in my answer that you might have to turn off checking for updates for it to work. What exactly is different about this one? Additionally, your old answer didn't really contribute anything new either. – Wyatt Ward Mar 09 '20 at 21:32
  • 4
    @Wyatt8740 Just a solution that doesn't require opening Terminal at all (as was the solution offered in your OP). This alternative may be helpful for people who are hesitant or afraid of messing with Terminal. Not meant to be offensive to you in any way. – Blundering Ecologist Mar 10 '20 at 02:46
  • 4
    I’m going to bounty this unless there’s a better way to suppress this without the command line. Thanks everyone, great questions often need a couple answers for everyone facing this to choose their preferred method of solving it. – bmike Apr 04 '20 at 14:10
  • 2
    @bmike Definitely. Hopefully this helps generate more alternative solutions. :) – Blundering Ecologist Apr 05 '20 at 18:31
  • 2
    @BlunderingEcologist Ah that's right. Sometimes I forget this is the apple stack exchange and not the Unix one (where there's no real fear/intimidation of the CLI). Well, I guess it's fair. – Wyatt Ward Apr 06 '20 at 01:22
  • 1
    Unfortunately this did not work for me. Even more concerning: even though "check for updates" is unchecked, I see a spinner saying "Checking for updates..." when I open "Software Update". I'm on Catalina 10.15.7. – Ryan Nov 16 '20 at 18:47
  • 2
    @Ryan Catalina is a bit of a mess. With this release Apple has made the decision to remove support for 32-bit applications (e.g. Office for Mac 2011). Apple started warning users about this with macOS Mojave (10.14), and now the cutoff is real. macOS Mojave is the last version of macOS that will run 32-bit apps. If users intentionally (or accidentally) install this new macOS version, they will lose access to their 32-bit applications. The only fix is to wipe their Mac and then reinstall the previous macOS version and all of their applications etc. – Blundering Ecologist Nov 16 '20 at 18:50
  • 1
    On Catalina, I had to open and close Settings->System Update twice with the internet off before that red thorn went away. – marathon Nov 27 '20 at 21:38
3

It's not the red dot itself that bugs me, it's that I'm still on Mojave, not yet ready to go to Big Sur, and don't want that reminder in my face all the time. I want syspref in the dock and running. Similarly, I always have a Terminal window open. I put the command in a file where I wanted it, named it, and updated my path. When I get the occasional red dot, I can hit the terminal window, enter "badge" and that is that. Elegant?...maybe not so much, but works for me.

#!/bin/bash  
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences AttentionPrefBundleIDs 0  
killall Dock
mmmmmm
  • 28,660
  • 17
  • 84
  • 140
Bruce Smith
  • 41
  • 1
  • you could have just turned off automatic update checking and run my command and not had to run your script constantly... Sysprefs can run, just don't go to the updates section. – Wyatt Ward Aug 03 '21 at 18:50