Notchy

Utility Toolkit

Lock Your Keyboard — Clean Without Chaos

Crumbs happen. Wiping your keyboard shouldn't type nonsense into Slack. Notchy's cleaning lock makes every key inert until you're done — free, with a countdown island so you always know the state.

Everything swallowed

A consuming event tap eats key downs, key ups, modifiers, and media keys system-wide. Scrub the whole board — nothing reaches the focused app.

State you can see

A pinned countdown island sits on the notch the entire time keys are dead — no guessing whether the lock is still on, no lost utility window behind your browser.

Impossible to trigger by accident

⌘⎋ unlocks — the one combo a cleaning wipe won't produce. Or let the countdown expire and the keyboard returns on its own.

One less single-purpose app

KeyboardCleanTool does one thing; Notchy does this and 40+ more — keystroke HUD, clipboard history, window snapping — all free.

At a glance

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

Keyboard Cleaning Lock — FAQ

How do I lock my Mac keyboard to clean it?

Turn on Notchy's cleaning lock and every keypress — letters, modifiers, media keys — is swallowed system-wide. Wipe away; nothing reaches your apps. A pinned countdown island in the notch shows the lock is active the whole time.

How do I unlock the keyboard?

Press ⌘⎋ (Command-Escape) — deliberately chosen because no cleaning wipe produces that combo — or just let the countdown run out. Either way your keyboard is instantly back.

Is this a KeyboardCleanTool alternative?

Yes — the same job, free, and with visible state: KeyboardCleanTool is a tiny window you can lose behind other apps, while Notchy pins a countdown island to the notch so you always know keys are dead.

Does the mouse still work while locked?

Yes. Only keyboard events are swallowed — your trackpad and mouse work normally, so you're never locked out of your own Mac.