You might try going to settings>general, scroll down to 'incoming messages' and change the setting for the tray icon.

Thanks. I have done that & an now waiting to see if it works. Something is not quite right in that I have both an Optus email account & a Gmail email account. When I do a download of both the Optus download may flash up that there are say 11 emails & then it will labour away & download nothing. I believe there is nothing to download as Optus emails also come to my phone & I have no issue there.

Didn't take long. It is not working unfortunately. I just clicked on my email icon & it opened showing a red circle with 13 in it. Go to collect emails & nothing there & 13 disappears! ie no change.

I just disabled the count badge which I do not care for anyway. I then sent myself a test email & it seems to be ok now,ie no more pesky red dot with a number in it. TBC Many thanks anyway for getting me to at least try & do stuff that scares me as I am an oldie & very computer challenged.

Problem fixed 100% now. Optus tried to fix it but it did not work. The only problem remaining was when I did a download on Thunderbird the Optus info in the bottom left hand corner was flashing up at last count 14 emails to collect.It would then labour away for a couple of minutes & all to no avail,ie no emails downloaded. I then went to Webmail where Optus emails are delivered to before being sent to Thunderbird & other such email systems. In webmail I just did a delete all of the trash/spam/and anything else I didn't want & BINGO my Thunderbird is all AOK again.