LaunchBar alternative: switching apps, for nothing
LaunchBar is a $29 power tool that indexes your whole Mac and learns how you type. Notchy does the everyday part — launch and switch from the notch — free. It is not the same depth, and this page does not claim it is.
| LaunchBar | Notchy | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29 single Mac · $49 family pack | Free — optional donations |
| Launch and switch apps | Yes | Yes — from the notch |
| System-wide indexed search | Yes — files, contacts, bookmarks | No |
| Learned abbreviations | Yes | No |
| Action chaining and scripts | Yes | Global hotkeys and Apple Shortcuts |
| Anything beyond launching | No | 50+ tools in the same island |
From Objective Development’s own site, checked against Notchy’s shipping build.
LaunchBar is deeper, straightforwardly
Nearly thirty years of refinement, an index across files, contacts and bookmarks, and an abbreviation engine that adapts to you. If you drive your Mac from the keyboard, that is worth $29 and Notchy is not the thing you want.
Most launching is six apps
Browser, editor, terminal, chat, mail, music. For that, launching from the notch is enough, and it does not need a licence key.
Automation, differently
Notchy does not chain actions the way LaunchBar does, but it does run Apple Shortcuts and bind global hotkeys to anything it can do.
Everything Notchy does, for free
- 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
- 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
- Open GitHub PR count in the notch (Keychain-stored token)
- iPhone-style call island — Answer/Decline FaceTime on the notch
- Notch Terminal — real VT100/xterm shell in a PTY, its own tab
- Privacy Indicator — pill when any app's camera or mic goes live
- 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
- 133 languages, fully localized
- Native SwiftUI, tuned for Apple Silicon
Notchy vs LaunchBar — FAQ
How much is LaunchBar?
$29 for a single Mac, or $49 for a family pack covering five. There is a 30-day trial, and after that it keeps working but periodically asks you to take a short break until you register.
Is Notchy a full replacement for LaunchBar?
No, and it would be misleading to say so. LaunchBar indexes your whole system and learns your abbreviations, so two keystrokes reach a file, a contact, a browser bookmark or a script. Notchy launches and switches apps from the notch — the common case, not the deep one.
What does Notchy's app launcher do?
It launches and switches between apps from the notch, so you can get to what you want without cluttering the Dock or reaching for Spotlight. That covers most of what people use a launcher for day to day.
Is it worth paying $29 for a launcher?
If you live in a launcher — chaining actions, sending files to scripts, searching everything by abbreviation — then yes, LaunchBar has earned its reputation over nearly thirty years. If you mostly switch between six apps, that is a lot of money for something Spotlight and a notch already do.
What about Raycast and Alfred?
Both are strong LaunchBar rivals with free tiers, and worth comparing before you pay for anything. We cover them separately.
Can I run both?
Yes. They do not conflict as long as you do not assign both the same hotkey — LaunchBar for deep search, Notchy for quick switching and everything else in the notch.
Compare Notchy vs 146 Mac Apps
See how Notchy replaces dozens of single-purpose paid Mac utilities for free.