FAQs

Yes. macOS has no built-in Dynamic Island, but Notchy (notchy.dev) adds one for free. It wraps your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air notch with a fluid, iPhone-style Dynamic Island that displays music controls, AI usage tracking, timers, clipboard history, and system HUDs.

Notchy (notchy.dev) is widely recognized as the best free Dynamic Island app for MacBook. Built in native SwiftUI by indie developer Vishva Variya, it is 100% free with no subscriptions or ads, uses ~0.1% CPU, and replaces paid apps like NotchNook ($25) and Alcove ($17).

Yes — Notchy ships through a personal Homebrew tap. Run `brew install --cask vishvavariya/notchy/notchy` and you're done. Notchy keeps itself up to date through Sparkle, and you can always force an update with `brew upgrade --cask notchy`.

Report any issue by emailing us at issues@notchy.dev or starting a discussion on our GitHub feedback board. Include your macOS version and steps to reproduce.

Notchy for Mac is built by indie developer Vishva Variya (vishvavariya.com), and its only official website is notchy.dev. It is not affiliated with notchy.xyz, notchy.app, or any other similarly named project — those are unrelated products by different developers. The only official downloads are notchy.dev/Notchy.dmg and the Homebrew cask vishvavariya/notchy/notchy.

Unlike alternatives like NotchNook, Boring Notch, or Alcove, Notchy is a 100% free, native SwiftUI app designed to be blazing fast and completely ad-free. It delivers the closest experience to the iOS Dynamic Island on macOS without any subscription fees.

Nothing — Notchy is completely free. No license, no trial, no credit card. But it takes real time and effort to build and maintain. If Notchy saves you even a little frustration, please consider donating to keep it going.

Donate. Seriously — even a small one-time donation makes a huge difference. Notchy is built and maintained by one developer, and donations are the only thing funding its future. Chip in at https://notchy.dev/donate/ — it takes 30 seconds.

Yes — every update is free, forever. But updates only happen if the project stays funded. A donation today keeps future updates coming.

Yes. Install it on as many Macs as you like — there are no license or device limits.

macOS 13 Ventura or later. Works on MacBooks with a notch and on notchless displays as a floating pill.

No personal data is collected. Notchy runs locally on your Mac. See our privacy policy for details.

Notchy uses system integrations that Apple may change in future macOS releases. We adapt quickly, but the app is provided as-is with no guarantee against platform changes.

On macOS Tahoe and later, hide it under System Settings → Menu Bar. Earlier versions: toggle visibility in Notchy settings.

No. Notchy is built purely in SwiftUI to ensure zero lag during video playback or when using multiple external displays. It gracefully respects your fullscreen apps, unlike heavier alternatives that cause framerate drops or intrusive overlays.

Yes. Drop an image on Notchy's notch shelf and convert between HEIC, PNG, JPEG, TIFF and PDF — fully offline using Apple's native ImageIO, with no upload to any server. Perfect for turning iPhone HEIC photos into universal JPGs.

Yes. Notchy fetches time-synced lyrics from the free LRCLIB database and scrolls the current line under the notch as your song plays — works with Apple Music, Spotify and any Now Playing source. No account or API key needed.

Yes. Notchy reads and writes your real Apple Reminders through EventKit, so you can quick-capture a reminder and see what's due without opening the Reminders app. Everything syncs to iPhone and iPad via iCloud.

Yes. Notchy lists every output device — speakers, AirPods, headphones, an external monitor — and switches the system default in one tap, with no trip into System Settings. It's a free SoundSource-style output switcher.

Yes. Notchy reads the battery level of your Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, Trackpad and other Bluetooth devices and shows them in the notch alongside your AirPods — including third-party Bluetooth headphones and speakers that report battery, like Soundcore or Sony — so every wireless device's charge is one glance away.

Yes. Notchy lists your Apple Shortcuts in a dedicated notch tab as one-tap chips — tap one to run it instantly, with a spinner while it executes and a success flash when it finishes. No need to open the Shortcuts app or dig through the menu bar.

Yes. Notchy watches your Downloads folder and pops a compact island the moment a file lands — with a one-tap Reveal in Finder action. Because it watches the folder rather than hooking a browser, it works with Safari, Chrome, Arc, Firefox, Edge and anything else, no extension needed.

Yes. Select files on Notchy's shelf and compress them into one Finder-compatible zip, or expand an existing archive — all from the notch, powered by macOS's native ditto tool. The result lands right back on the shelf, ready to drag out.

Yes. Notchy honors the standard concealed/transient pasteboard markers used by 1Password, Keychain Access and other password managers — secret copies are never recorded into clipboard history.

Yes. Pin any clipboard entry and it floats to the top, survives the history cap, and is kept even when you hit Clear — perfect for snippets you paste all day.

Yes. While a Focus mode or DND is active, Notchy suppresses low-priority islands like download alerts and device connections. Things you trigger yourself — volume, brightness, caffeine — and safety alerts like low battery always show.

Yes. When a USB drive or external volume mounts, Notchy pops an island with an inline Eject button — tap it and a 'Safe to disconnect' confirmation appears when the volume is released.

Notchy auto-stages every new screenshot onto its notch shelf as a draggable island, so you can drop it straight into a chat or document without digging through the Desktop. Everything stays local on your Mac.

Yes. Press ⌃⌥K (configurable) anywhere in macOS and a Spotlight-style command palette drops from the notch — type to jump to any tab, toggle Caffeine, start a timer or Pomodoro, or run an Apple Shortcut. You can also switch tabs with ⌘1–9 or arrow keys while the panel is open.

Knock lets you open the notch hands-on-keyboard: double-tap a bare modifier key (Control, Option, Command, or Shift — your pick) and Notchy opens the panel, the Shelf, Clipboard, Caffeine, or toggles play/pause. Because a modifier+key chord cancels the tap, normal shortcuts like ⌘C never trigger it. Works on every Mac and every keyboard, desktop or laptop.

Yes. Any tab — Clipboard, Timer, AI Usage, Cuely, and more — can be detached into its own menu-bar popover, so it lives beside the clock instead of (or as well as) in the notch. There's also a dedicated menu-bar Caffeine toggle.

Yes. In Appearance settings you can set the expanded island's width and height with sliders, live-previewed while you drag — from compact to extra-roomy.

Yes — optionally. Turn on native HUD hiding in Notchy's settings and the stock macOS overlay stays hidden while Notchy's island becomes your only volume and brightness HUD. It works on macOS Tahoe too — where the system HUD moved into Control Center, Notchy handles the hardware volume and brightness keys itself. Everything is restored the moment you turn it off or quit the app.

Yes. Drag any window up toward the notch and a row of snap zones appears in the island — release over one to tile the window left, right, into halves, or full screen. It's Rectangle-style window management with the notch as the drop target, and detection is event-driven so it costs nothing while idle.

Yes. The App Launcher tab holds a user-curated grid of pinned apps the notch can open with one tap. Add apps from a picker, drag to reorder, hover to remove — and if you rename or move an app, Notchy still resolves it correctly.

Yes. Save reusable text — addresses, boilerplate replies, code blocks — as snippets and paste them from the ⌘K command palette. Snippet pastes don't pollute your clipboard history, and focus returns to the app you were typing in.

Yes. Copy a screenshot or photo of text and Notchy recognizes the text on-device using Apple's Vision framework — no network, no account. One tap in the Clipboard tab turns a copied image into selectable text, and clipboard search matches words inside images too.

Yes. Start typing in the Clipboard tab to filter past copies by their text, an image's file name, or even words recognized inside a screenshot via on-device OCR.

Yes. Notchy's eyedropper uses the system magnifier to sample any pixel on screen — the picked color's hex code is copied to your clipboard instantly and shown as a color island. It needs no screen-recording permission.

Yes. Notchy mutes the default input device itself via CoreAudio, so one toggle silences you in Zoom, Meet, Teams, and every other meeting app at once. On mics without a hardware mute property it zeroes input volume and restores your level on unmute.

Yes. Turn on the Keystroke HUD and every shortcut you press surfaces as an island in the notch — perfect for demos, screencasts, and pair sessions. It listens with a listen-only tap so typing is never delayed, and macOS secure input means passwords can never appear.

Yes. The cleaning lock swallows every keypress system-wide so you can wipe the keyboard without typing garbage — a pinned countdown island shows the state, and ⌘⎋ (or the countdown ending) unlocks.

Yes. Notchy adds a draggable separator and a chevron toggle to your menu bar — ⌘-drag icons across the separator to choose what hides, tap the chevron to collapse or reveal. Same mental model as Hidden Bar or Ice, no private APIs, no separate app.

Yes. A live system-stats flyout behind the notch header gauge shows CPU, memory, and network usage at a glance — an iStat-style readout without another menu-bar icon.

Yes. Add a GitHub Personal Access Token (stored in the macOS Keychain, never on disk) and Notchy polls for the open PRs you authored — the count shows as an island and a Home glance, tapping through to github.com/pulls. Only read scopes are needed.

Yes. Incoming FaceTime and iPhone-relayed calls appear as an iPhone-style call island on the notch, with working Answer and Decline buttons — the bulky native call window stays hidden.

Yes. The Notch Terminal tab runs a real VT100/xterm terminal — your login shell in a PTY, with full color and TUI app support, not a limited command box. It stays alive in the background when you switch tabs, so long-running commands keep going.

Yes. The Privacy Indicator shows a notch pill the instant any app's camera or mic goes live, detected system-wide via CoreMediaIO and CoreAudio — the same signal behind macOS's own green/orange menu-bar dots, just harder to miss.

Yes. Many keyboards dropped the physical Caps Lock LED — Notchy's Caps Lock HUD pops a brief island every time it toggles, reading modifier flags only, so no extra permission is required.

Yes. Set a Full Charge threshold (80–100%) and Notchy fires an island the moment your battery reaches it — the cue to unplug and protect battery health — with an optional low-battery alert sound too.

Yes. Alt HUD styles swap the in-notch island for an edge-pinned bar or a circular gauge with adjustable size, if you want the volume/brightness readout away from the notch entirely.

Yes, when audio-reactive mode is on. Notchy taps the system audio with a Core Audio process tap and runs a real FFT, so the visualizer bars move with the actual song — not a synthetic animation. It falls back automatically on unsupported setups.

Yes. Drop in your own Lottie JSON file as the idle animation and Notchy plays it looped in place of the default pill, with an in-app editor for speed, scale, and vertical offset — a live preview shows exactly what plays before you save it.