Feature Narrative

Live Activities for macOS

macOS Tahoe can show Live Activities from your iPhone — if you have one, and if you're outside the EU. Notchy adds Live Activities that start on the Mac itself: timers, downloads, calls, meetings and music, live in your MacBook notch or a floating pill. Try it free for 7 days.

Try Free for 7 Days Buy Notchy$24.99

How to get Live Activities on Mac

1
Download Notchy for Mac
Get the Notchy DMG (7-day free trial) or install it using Homebrew. Requires macOS 13 Ventura or newer, running on Intel or Apple silicon.
2
Open it from Applications
Notchy appears in the notch, or as a floating pill on Macs and displays without one. Features that need a macOS permission ask for it the first time you turn them on.
3
Pin your active timers & tracks
Open Spotify/Apple Music or start a Pomodoro focus timer. The widget instantly snaps to the notch, updating its progress bar in real time like an iOS Live Activity.

Real-Time Indicators, Directly in the Notch

iOS Live Activities keep high-frequency updates on your screen without hijacking your active workflow. When you track a focus timer or adjust a Spotify song on your Mac, opening massive browser windows or heavy control panels breaks your creative concentration.

Notchy fits active widgets right in the menu bar. The countdown timer ticks down silently inside the notch pill. Hover over it to scrub music tracks, or drop a file in it. It expands gracefully and gets out of your way instantly, maintaining absolute performance efficiency.

At a glance

Everything Notchy does, in one app

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

Show all 51

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
Custom islands through the local developer API (off by default)
iPhone-style call island — Answer/Decline FaceTime on the notch
Notch Terminal — real VT100/xterm shell in a PTY, its own tab
Camera Guard — alert (or block) when any app opens your camera
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
134 languages, fully localized
Native SwiftUI, tuned for Apple silicon

macOS Live Activities FAQ

Does macOS have built-in Live Activities?

Only from your iPhone. macOS 26 Tahoe shows Live Activities that are running on your iPhone in the Mac's menu bar, and clicking one opens the app through iPhone Mirroring. Mac apps themselves can't start a Live Activity — that's the gap Notchy fills with Mac-native ones in the notch.

Why aren't Live Activities showing on my Mac?

Tahoe's Live Activities come from your iPhone and depend on iPhone Mirroring, so they need a nearby iPhone set up for iPhone Mirroring with the same Apple Account. iPhone Mirroring isn't available in the EU, which is why many people there don't see them at all. Notchy's own activities run on the Mac and don't need an iPhone.

Which activities can I track in real time?

Countdown timers, stopwatches and Pomodoro sessions, download progress, Zoom and Teams calls with a call timer, a countdown to your next meeting, Now Playing with media controls, and Claude Code or Codex asking for permission. System indicators — AirPods battery, volume and brightness — show in the same island.

Is there any charge for Mac Live Activities?

No subscription. Notchy is $24.99 one-time — a lifetime license for one Mac with updates included — after a 7-day free trial.