How to add a number over your app icon using applicationIconBadgeNumber

Paul Hudson    February 13th 2018    @twostraws

Once your app has the user’s permission to do so, you can show numbers over your icon to indicate outstanding tasks, unread messages, game invites, or whatever makes sense for your app.

You do need to get their permission, though, so you should start by adding an import for the UserNotifications framework, then request permission with code like this:

UNUserNotificationCenter.current().requestAuthorization(options: .badge) { (granted, error) in
    if error != nil {
        // success!
    }
}

Once you have that permission – anywhere inside the // success! comment or at some point afterwards – you can place an integer badge of your app icon with one line of code:

UIApplication.shared.applicationIconBadgeNumber = 1

Available from iOS 2.0

Did this solution work for you? Please pass it on!

Tweet

Other people are reading…

• What is an IndexPath?
• Changing which UITabBarController tabs can be edited
• How to create a parallax effect in UIKit
• How to position a view using Auto Layout anchors
• How to hide passwords in a UITextField

About the Swift Knowledge Base

This is part of the Swift Knowledge Base, a free, searchable collection of solutions for common iOS questions.