Sapphire for Mac: free, with tiers on top
Sapphire is a genuinely ambitious notch app — open source under AGPL-3.0, and one of the few that does Android Nearby Share properly. The part the feature list does not lead with: several headline capabilities sit behind subscription tiers, and the whole app needs macOS 14.6. Notchy is free with no tiers and runs back to macOS 13 Ventura.
Where the two actually differ
- One price, and it is nothing
Sapphire's core is free, but Blip Agent, Blip Live, Circle to Search and the live sports and finance activities are subscription tiers. Notchy has no tiers, no licence key and no trial clock — every feature is in the free download, funded by optional donations.
- Runs on Macs Sapphire will not
Sapphire requires macOS Sonoma 14.6 or later. Notchy supports macOS 13 Ventura and later, so a MacBook that cannot or will not move past Ventura still gets a full island.
- Both work without a notch
Worth saying plainly, because most comparisons get it wrong: Sapphire supports notchless Macs and so does Notchy. Neither is limited to a notched MacBook Pro, and both render on an external display or a Mac mini.
- Credit where it is due
Sapphire's Android Nearby Share is the real thing and Notchy has no equivalent. If moving files between a Mac and an Android phone is your daily problem, that feature alone may decide it — and the core app is free, so trying it costs nothing.
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
Sapphire for Mac — FAQ
Is Sapphire free?
The core app is free and open source under AGPL-3.0. Some of its headline features are not: Blip Agent, Blip Live, Circle to Search and the live sports and finance activities sit behind paid subscription tiers. So “free” is accurate for the base app and misleading for the full feature list you see advertised.
What macOS does Sapphire need?
macOS Sonoma 14.6 or later, on Intel or Apple Silicon. If your Mac is on Ventura you cannot run it at all. Notchy supports macOS 13 Ventura and later, which is usually the deciding factor on an older MacBook.
Does Sapphire need a notch?
No. Sapphire supports notchless Macs, and so does Notchy — both render the island on the screen edge where there is no cutout. A Mac mini or an external display is fine for either.
Is Sapphire safe?
It is open source under AGPL-3.0 with a named author, so the code can be read by anyone who wants to. Like every notch app it asks for accessibility and related permissions on first launch, which is expected for something drawing over the menu bar. The usual advice applies: install from the official site or its GitHub releases rather than a mirror.
How is Notchy different from Sapphire?
Mostly in where the line sits. Sapphire is free at the core with subscription tiers above it; Notchy is free outright, with no tiers, licence keys or trial, funded by optional donations. Sapphire needs macOS 14.6, Notchy goes back to macOS 13 Ventura. Feature-for-feature the two overlap heavily — file shelf, media, window snapping, HUDs — so the honest question is which pricing model and which macOS floor suit your Mac.
Can I run both?
Technically yes, but you should not want to. Two apps drawing the same notch fight over the same space and the same Now Playing data, and you get flicker. Pick one.
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