System Control
Your brightness keys, on every display
macOS leaves third-party monitors out of its own brightness control. Notchydrives them over DDC/CI, so the keys you already press work on the screen you're actually looking at.
The hardware keys, unchanged
No new shortcut to learn and no slider to go hunting for. F1 and F2 do what they have always done, on the display that's in front of you.
DDC/CI over IOAVService
Apple Silicon's own display-service path, not a hack around it. Off by default; it switches on when your monitor answers on the control channel.
One HUD for everything
External brightness lands in the same compact notch island as volume and built-in brightness — never Apple's full-screen overlay.
One fewer utility running
If you installed MonitorControl or BetterDisplay only for brightness, that's a menu-bar item you can drop.
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
External display control — FAQ
Why won't my Mac's brightness keys change my external monitor?
macOS only maps the brightness keys to displays it controls directly — the built-in screen and Apple's own monitors. For a third-party display, the brightness has to be set over DDC/CI, a control channel that runs across the video cable, and macOS doesn't do that for you. Notchy does.
How does Notchy control external display brightness?
Through Apple Silicon's IOAVService, the same DDC/CI path the dedicated tools use. Your existing brightness keys and the notch HUD then drive the external monitor exactly like the built-in one.
Does it work with every monitor?
Only with monitors that speak DDC/CI — which is most desktop displays over DisplayPort, USB-C or HDMI, but not all of them, and support over some hubs and KVMs is patchy. The feature is off by default and turns on when your monitor answers.
Is this a BetterDisplay or MonitorControl replacement?
For the brightness half of what they do, yes. Both are excellent, focused tools — BetterDisplay in particular goes far deeper with virtual displays, HiDPI modes and resolution control. If DDC brightness on your hardware keys is what you actually wanted, Notchy already does it as part of the app you're running for the notch.
Does it also do volume and keyboard backlight?
Volume, brightness, and keyboard backlight all get compact notch islands instead of Apple's full-screen overlay. The keyboard backlight goes through the same CoreBrightness client Control Center uses.