Shazam alternative: the answer, in the notch
Shazam on Mac is free and keeps everything you have ever identified. Notchy matches with the same ShazamKit engine from the notch, stores nothing, and does not need a menu bar slot. Both free — this is about the trade.
| Shazam | Notchy | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — Apple | Free — optional donations |
| Identifies songs | Yes | Yes — same ShazamKit matching |
| Where you start it | Menu bar icon or Control Center | The notch |
| History library | Yes — permanent | No — nothing is stored |
| Auto Shazam (continuous) | Yes | No |
| Share to Spotify, Deezer, YouTube | Yes | Opens in Apple Music |
| Anything beyond music | No | 50+ tools in the same island |
From Apple’s own Shazam support documentation and App Store listing, checked against Notchy’s shipping build.
Shazam wins on memory
A permanent library of every song you have caught, plus Auto Shazam listening in the background, is genuinely useful and Notchy has neither. If you use identification to build playlists later, use Shazam.
Notchy wins on reach
Control Center is two clicks and a glance at a list. Identifying from the notch is one gesture, with the listening state and then the answer in the same place your eye already is.
Storing nothing is a feature and a limitation
Notchy keeps no history and closes the microphone the moment the session ends. That is the right default for a mic feature — and it does mean the song is gone once you dismiss it, so save it while it is there.
Music you already have
For anything playing on the Mac, Now Playing and synced lyrics already know the track. Listening is only for music in the room.
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 Shazam — FAQ
Is Shazam free on Mac?
Yes. Apple owns Shazam, and both the Mac app and the built-in Music Recognition control in Control Center are free. Notchy is free too, so nobody is paying for song identification either way.
Do I even need an app? macOS has Music Recognition built in.
You can add Music Recognition to Control Center and click Recognize Music there. It works. The friction is that it lives behind a Control Center click and the answer appears in a list you then have to go and read. Notchy does it from the notch and shows the result in place.
What does Shazam's Mac app do that Notchy doesn't?
Quite a lot: a permanent library of everything you have ever identified, Auto Shazam that listens continuously in the background, time-synced lyrics, changing the sound input, and sharing out to Spotify, Deezer and YouTube Music. Notchy identifies the song in front of you and links into Apple Music.
What does Notchy do differently?
It lives in the notch rather than the menu bar or Control Center, so identification is one gesture from where your eye already is. It stores nothing — no history, no library — and closes the microphone the instant the session ends.
Does either one record audio?
Neither uploads a recording. Both use ShazamKit-style matching, where a compact audio signature is computed on the device and only that is matched against the catalogue. Notchy additionally keeps no record of the result afterwards.
Which should I use?
If you want a library of everything you have ever heard and Auto Shazam running in the background, use Shazam's app — it is free and it is the better tool for that. If you mostly want to know what is playing right now without another menu bar icon, the notch is quicker.
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