New in Notchy 1.0.49
The Mac App Launcher That Lives in Your Notch
Pin your go-to apps to the notch and open them with one tap. Notchy turns the Dynamic Island into a tiny, always-reachable dock — free, native, and visible even in full-screen apps.
Always within reach
The Dock hides, Launchpad is gone, Spotlight needs typing. The notch is on screen all day — so your pinned apps launch with one tap from any desktop or full-screen app.
Curated by you
Add apps from a picker, drag tiles to reorder, hover to remove. Keep it to the five apps you actually live in — not a scrolling wall of everything installed.
Smarter than a shortcut
Icons and names resolve from the filesystem at render time — rename or move an app and the tile keeps working. Prefer the keyboard? The ⌃⌥K command palette drives every Notchy action too.
Free, native, private
Pure SwiftUI, ~0.1% CPU, no account. The App Launcher ships free alongside every other Notchy tool — no upsell tier.
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
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- 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
- 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
Mac App Launcher — FAQ
How does Notchy’s App Launcher work?
Open the Launcher tab in the notch, add apps from a picker, and they become a grid of one-tap launch tiles. Drag to reorder, hover to remove. Your go-to apps are always one tap away, on every desktop and in every full-screen app.
Is it a Dock replacement?
It complements the Dock: the notch is visible even when the Dock is hidden or you’re in a full-screen app, so your pinned apps stay reachable everywhere. Many users hide the Dock entirely and launch from the notch.
What happens if I move or rename an app?
Notchy resolves icons and names from the filesystem at render time rather than storing stale copies — so a renamed or moved app still resolves and launches correctly.
Is the App Launcher free?
Yes — like everything in Notchy. No subscription, no trial, no license key. It ships alongside 40+ other notch tools including clipboard history, window snapping, and a Pomodoro timer.