Media & Audio
A visualizer that actually listens
Most notch bars are a loop pretending to be music. Notchycan drive them from a live FFT of your system audio instead — whatever's playing, whatever app it came from.
Genuine frequency analysis
A fast Fourier transform of the real output signal, so a bass line moves the low bars and a hi-hat moves the high ones — not a sine wave on a timer.
Any source
Because it reads system audio rather than an app's API, a browser tab or a game drives it just as well as Apple Music or Spotify.
Opt in, not on
Live analysis costs CPU, so it ships off. The animated fallback looks good and costs nothing — turn the real thing on when you want it.
Where lyrics aren't
In the Now Playing tab the visualizer fills the space when a track has no synced lyrics to scroll.
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
Mac audio visualizer — FAQ
Is this a real audio visualizer or just an animation?
Real. Opt in and the bars are driven by a live FFT — a fast Fourier transform — of the system audio, so they move with what's actually playing. Left off, they fall back to a tasteful looping animation that costs nothing.
Does it work with Spotify, Apple Music and browser audio?
It reads system audio rather than any one app's API, so anything coming out of your Mac drives it — Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube in a tab, a game, a video call's hold music.
What does it cost in CPU?
It's off by default precisely because a live FFT isn't free. Turned on it stays light, but if you're on battery and want every last minute, leave it off and keep the animated fallback.
Where does the visualizer appear?
In the now-playing island on the notch, next to the artwork — and in the Now Playing tab, where it fills the space when a track has no synced lyrics.