A BatFi Alternative for MacBooks
BatFi, by micropixels, manages how your MacBook charges: hold a charge limit indefinitely, run on battery on demand, and automate it by time and place — 60% at the desk, 90% before you head out, full on weekends. It needs a licence, an Apple silicon Mac and macOS Sonoma or newer. Notchy's charge limit, since 1.0.169, runs on Intel and Apple silicon from macOS 13.
Looking for BatFi itself? It lives at micropixels.software/apps/batfi.
- BatFi price
- Paid licence
- BatFi requires
- macOS 14 Sonoma or later, Apple silicon only
- Notchy price
- $24.99 one-time, 7-day free trial
Why use Notchy instead of BatFi?
- On more Macs
Limit charging on Intel or Apple silicon MacBooks, from macOS 13 Ventura.
- Sailing Mode, discharge, top up
Let the charge drift down a few points before it resumes, discharge on the charger down to your limit, or top up to 100% with one tap before a trip.
- Battery at a glance
Health, history charts, temperature, a warning when an app drains the battery, plus iPhone, iPad and accessory levels.
- Where BatFi is better
Rules by time and place instead of one number, and power-mode shortcuts. Notchy has one limit you set yourself.
Everything Notchy does, in one app
- Fluid Dynamic Island animations on the Mac notch
- Command palette (⌃⌥K) — every action one keystroke away
- Knock — double-tap a modifier key to open the notch
- AI usage tracker (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot)
- Detach any tab into a menu-bar popover
- Now Playing music controls (Apple Music & Spotify)
- Time-synced karaoke lyrics under the notch
- Mac clipboard history shelf (password-manager safe)
- Searchable clipboard — filter by text, file name, or OCR'd words
- On-device OCR — copy a screenshot, get its text (Apple Vision)
- Window snapping — drag a window to the notch to tile it
- App Launcher — pin apps to the notch, open with one tap
Show all 51Show fewer
- Text snippets — TextExpander-style pastes from the ⌘K palette
- One-tap screen capture to clipboard + shelf
- Color eyedropper — sample any pixel, hex auto-copied
- System-wide mic mute for every meeting app at once
- Keystroke HUD for demos & screencasts (secure-input safe)
- Keyboard cleaning lock with countdown island (⌘⎋ unlocks)
- Menu-bar icon hiding — Bartender-style separator & chevron
- Live CPU / memory / network stats flyout
- Custom islands through the local developer API (off by default)
- iPhone-style call island — Answer/Decline FaceTime on the notch
- Notch Terminal — real VT100/xterm shell in a PTY, its own tab
- Camera Guard — alert (or block) when any app opens your camera
- Caps Lock HUD — brief island on every toggle
- Full Charge island with adjustable threshold + low-battery sound
- Alt HUD styles — edge-pinned bar or circular gauge off the notch
- Audio-reactive Now Playing visualizer (real FFT of system audio)
- Custom closed-notch idle animation — drop in your own Lottie JSON
- Drag-and-drop file drop shelf — persists across relaunches
- Zip & unzip files right from the shelf
- Image converter (HEIC, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PDF) + video → GIF
- Run Apple Shortcuts with one tap
- Screenshots auto-staged on the shelf, ready to drag
- Download finished alerts with Reveal in Finder
- USB drive mount island with one-tap Eject
- Apple Reminders quick capture & due list
- macOS Pomodoro notch timer & stopwatch — streaks + 7-day chart
- Resizable expanded panel (width & height, live preview)
- System HUDs (volume, brightness, battery)
- Audio output switcher (speakers, AirPods, monitor)
- AirPods connection manager & battery
- Magic Mouse, Keyboard & Trackpad battery + low-battery alerts
- Quick notes & Calendar widgets
- Camera Mirror (check your appearance)
- Keep Awake (caffeine toggle)
- Teleprompter (Cuely) for Zoom calls
- Focus-aware alerts & native haptic feedback
- Lock screen widgets & hide-the-notch mode
- 134 languages, fully localized
- Native SwiftUI, tuned for Apple silicon
The honest verdict on BatFi
BatFi's time-and-place rules are genuinely clever and worth paying for if your day moves around. For a plain 80% limit on any MacBook, Notchy does it.
BatFi alternative — FAQ
Does BatFi work on Intel Macs?
No — micropixels lists an Apple silicon Mac and macOS Sonoma or newer as requirements.
Is BatFi free?
No; the vendor says a licence is required, sold through Gumroad.
How does Notchy limit charging?
It installs a small root helper the first time you turn Limit Charging on (one admin prompt). Turning it off, or uninstalling Notchy, restores normal charging.
Can Notchy change the limit by location or time?
No. There's one limit, with Sailing Mode and a one-tap top up.
Is Notchy free?
No. Notchy is a one-time $24.99 purchase for one Mac, with a 7-day free trial and updates included — no subscription or in-app purchase.