Tot Alternative: Thoughts Land in the Notch
Tot's seven-dot scratchpad is charming, but your quick thought still needs a home you'll find again. Notchycatches notes right at the notch — jot without switching apps, and the note stays on the pill until you're done with it. Pair it with clipboard history and the shelf, and stray text finally has a system.
Why use Notchy instead of Tot?
- Zero-friction capture
Open the notch, type, done — no dock icon, no window management, no deciding which of seven dots deserves this thought.
- Notes meet clipboard
Half of quick notes are really copies. Notchy's clipboard history and pinned snippets sit one tab away from your notes, in the same panel.
- Free, with the whole suite
Quick notes ride along with Now Playing, the drop shelf, Pomodoro, HUD replacement, and AI usage tracking — one native app, $0.
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
Tot alternative — FAQ
Is there a Tot alternative that lives in the notch?
Yes — Notchy. Instead of seven colored dots, Notchy gives you instant quick notes right in the MacBook notch, plus clipboard history and 30 more tools.
How fast is capturing a note in Notchy?
Notes open straight from the notch, so you can jot something down and get back to work with zero friction — no separate app to switch to.
Does Notchy do more than quick notes?
Yes — Now Playing, clipboard history, a file drop shelf, Pomodoro timer, AirPods battery and system HUDs, all from the notch.
Is Notchy free?
Yes — completely free, funded only by optional donations.
Compare Notchy vs 165 Mac Apps
See how Notchy replaces dozens of single-purpose paid Mac utilities for free.