MacOS – How to disable the Apple ID warning about not being signed into iCloud

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On my work computer's Apple ID I only sign into "Media & Purchases" – to access my Music library. I don't have a reason to sign into "iCloud" and prefer to keep my personal iCloud off of my work machine.

Unfortunately (on macOS Catalina) the cost of this is that System Preferences has a permanent badge icon and I'm prompted to add iCloud every time I open System Preferences.

How can I turn off this warning without signing into my personal iCloud account?

Some solutions I've considered:

  1. Use iCloud, but toggle off all syncing.
  2. Create dummy Apple ID just to sign into "iCloud" (keep my regular Apple ID for "Media & Purchases").

Best Answer

You could also issue this command in the Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences AttentionPrefBundleIDs 0; killall Dock

This has worked for me so far (I'm on 10.15.2). Before that I created an alias for System Preferences, and put that in the dock instead. You get a small arrow at the bottom of the icon, but it's less eye-catching than the nasty red blob.

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