System & Hardware
Stop charging at 80%
A MacBook that lives on the adapter spends its life at 100%, and that is what wears a battery down. Notchy holds the charge where you want it — anywhere from 50 to 100% — with Sailing Mode, automatic discharge and a one-tap top up. Free.
Your limit, 50 to 100%
80% is the usual answer, but the slider is yours. The Mac keeps running on wall power — it simply stops filling the battery past the line you drew.
Sailing Mode, not micro-cycling
Hold a battery exactly at a number and it charges a point, drops a point, charges again, all day. Sailing Mode lets it drift down by up to 20 points first, so the cycle counter stops ticking over nothing.
Automatic discharge
Plug in at 96% with an 80% limit and nothing normally happens — you just sit at 96%. Automatic Discharge bypasses the adapter and runs from the battery until it reaches your limit.
Top up before you travel
One tap charges to 100% and then returns to your limit by itself. No toggling the feature off the night before and forgetting to switch it back on.
One admin prompt, then nothing
Charge control needs a root helper to reach the SMC. It is installed the first time you turn Limit Charging on, and removed — with normal charging restored — whenever you turn it off or uninstall.
The rest of the battery picture
Cycle count and capacity on the battery health page, unplug and full-charge alerts, and your iPhone, iPad and accessory levels on the notch.
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
- 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
- 133 languages, fully localized
- Native SwiftUI, tuned for Apple Silicon
Charge limit — FAQ
Can Notchy stop my MacBook charging at 80%?
Yes. Turn Limit Charging on and pick any level between 50 and 100%. The battery holds there while the adapter stays connected, so the Mac runs on wall power without sitting at a full charge all day.
What is Sailing Mode?
Once the battery reaches your limit, Sailing Mode lets it drift down a few points — you choose how many, up to 20 — before charging resumes. That avoids the constant micro-cycling that happens when a Mac tops up every time it dips 1% below the line.
What if I plug in above the limit?
Automatic Discharge handles that. When you connect the adapter above your limit, Notchy bypasses it and runs the Mac from the battery until the level falls back to where you set it, then normal limiting resumes.
Can I still charge to 100% before a flight?
Yes — Top Up is one tap. It charges to 100% once, then goes straight back to your limit. No need to turn the whole feature off and remember to turn it on again.
Why does it ask for my password once?
Charge control has to talk to the Mac's SMC, which needs a root helper. Notchy installs that helper the first time you switch Limit Charging on — one admin prompt, nothing after. Turn the feature off or uninstall Notchy and the helper is removed and normal charging restored.
Does this work on Intel Macs?
Yes. Notchy is one universal build that runs on Intel and Apple silicon, from macOS 13 Ventura onward.
Is it really free?
Yes. No trial, licence key, subscription or in-app purchase — and the charge limit is not held back behind a paid tier.