A Calendr Alternative in the notch
Calendr is a free, MIT-licensed menu bar calendar with natural-language event entry — type a date, time, duration and calendar and it creates the event — plus multiple time zones in the menu bar and a URL scheme. It installs from Homebrew or GitHub. Notchy's calendar lives in the notch instead. It reads every calendar on your Mac, including Google and Outlook accounts added in Internet Accounts, plus any iCalendar link or CalDAV account you subscribe to.
Looking for Calendr itself? It lives on GitHub as pakerwreah/Calendr.
- Calendr price
- Free
- Calendr requires
- macOS (see the GitHub releases)
- Notchy price
- $24.99 one-time, 7-day free trial
Why use Notchy instead of Calendr?
- Google and Outlook, through your Mac
Add Google or Microsoft 365 in System Settings → Internet Accounts with Calendars on, and their events appear in Notchy next to your other Mac calendars.
- Any calendar link
Subscribe to an .ics link from a team, a school or a sports fixture list. Feed URLs are kept out of plain settings because they often carry an access token.
- Your next event, visible
A countdown to the next meeting in the notch, and one-click join for video-call links.
- Where Calendr is better
Creating events: Calendr's natural-language entry is fast. Notchy's event editing (1.0.201, opt-in) saves quick events to writable Apple calendars only. Calendr also shows several time zones right in the menu bar.
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
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- 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 Calendr
Calendr is a lovely free menu bar calendar, especially if you type events. Notchy is the pick if your calendars live in Google or Outlook and you want the next one counting down in the notch.
Calendr alternative — FAQ
Is Calendr free?
Yes. It's open source under the MIT licence, with an optional Buy Me a Coffee link.
Can Notchy show Google Calendar without adding it to macOS?
Only as a read-only calendar link: paste Google's “Secret address in iCal format” in Settings → Calendar → Connect Another Calendar. Notchy doesn't sign in to Google itself; for full sync, add the account in System Settings → Internet Accounts.
Can Notchy create calendar events?
Since 1.0.201, Manage Calendar Events saves quick events to a writable Apple calendar and edits or deletes your own single events. Shared and recurring events still open in Calendar, so for fast natural-language entry Calendr or Fantastical remains the better fit.
Does Notchy show Todoist tasks too?
Yes. Todoist tasks sit next to Apple Reminders.
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.