File Shelf
Merge PDFs without uploading them
Two contracts, a scan and an appendix, a stack of receipts — drop them on the notch, select, merge. Notchycombines them locally through Apple's own PDFKit, so the documents never leave your Mac.
Nothing is sent to a server
The free PDF sites that rank for this all work the same way: you upload the file, they merge it, you download it back. That is fine for a flyer and a poor idea for a payslip, an NDA or a passport scan. This runs entirely on your Mac, offline, and the staged result is cleaned up with the rest of the shelf.
Your page order, not alphabetical
Pages come out in the order the tiles sit on the shelf. Numbered chapters and scanned batches keep the sequence you arranged instead of being silently re-sorted by filename.
Images merge in as pages
A stack of scans or screenshots is the same job as a stack of PDFs, so images count as one page each and can be mixed in freely. Pair it with the image converter when the sources are HEIC straight off a phone.
Quicker than the Preview detour
No opening a document, revealing the thumbnail sidebar, dragging one file onto another and exporting. The files are already staged on the shelf — merging is one more action in the place you were working.
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
Merging PDFs on Mac — FAQ
How do I merge two PDFs on a Mac for free?
Drop both files onto the Notchy shelf, select them, and the Merge button appears as soon as two mergeable files are selected. The combined document stages back on the shelf ready to drag into Mail, Finder or an upload field. There is no charge, no page limit and no account.
Does it upload my PDFs anywhere?
No. The merge runs locally through PDFKit, Apple’s own PDF framework, and the result is written to a temporary folder on your Mac. Nothing leaves the machine — which is the practical difference between this and the web tools that ask you to hand over a contract or a payslip to a server you don’t control.
What order do the pages come out in?
The order the files sit in on the shelf, left to right — the order you arranged. Sorting by filename would silently reshuffle numbered chapters or scanned batches, so it doesn’t happen. Rearrange the tiles before merging and the output follows.
Can I merge images into a PDF too?
Yes. Any image on the shelf becomes one page in the merged document, so a stack of scans or screenshots combines into a single PDF the same way. Images and PDFs can be mixed in one merge.
How is this different from doing it in Preview?
Preview can do it, but it means opening the file, revealing the thumbnail sidebar, dragging one document onto another and exporting the result. This is a selection and one click from the shelf where the files already are. For two or three documents it saves the whole detour.
Does merging re-compress or degrade the pages?
No. Existing PDF pages are copied into the new document as-is rather than re-rendered, so text stays selectable and image quality is unchanged.
Does it overwrite my original files?
Never. The originals are left untouched and the merge is written as a new file named after the first document — “Report (merged).pdf”. Merge the same stack twice and you get a second numbered file rather than a replaced one.