System Toolkit
A Free Mac System Monitor in the Notch
CPU spiking? RAM full? Network crawling? Notchy answers in one tap — a live stats flyout at the notch, with no extra menu bar icon and no $12 utility to buy.
The numbers that matter
CPU percent, memory used the way Activity Monitor counts it, and live network throughput. Not forty gauges you never read — the three you check when the fans spin up.
No menu bar clutter
iStat Menus and Stats each cost you menu bar real estate all day for numbers you glance at twice. Notchy tucks them behind the notch header — visible on tap, invisible otherwise.
A monitor that doesn't drain
Sampling runs only while you're looking. The rest of the time Notchy idles at ~0.1% CPU — monitoring your Mac shouldn't be the thing slowing it down.
Battery too
Pair it with battery health (cycle count, capacity) and device battery levels for the complete hardware picture — free.
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 System Monitor — FAQ
What stats does Notchy show?
A live flyout behind the notch header gauge shows CPU usage, memory pressure (active + wired + compressed, the way Activity Monitor counts it), and network throughput — the three numbers you actually check.
Is Notchy a free iStat Menus alternative?
For glanceable CPU / RAM / network monitoring, yes. iStat Menus costs ~$12 and adds another menu bar icon; Notchy's stats live behind the notch you already have, and it's free.
Does monitoring itself burn CPU?
No. Sampling only runs while the flyout is open — Notchy idles at ~0.1% CPU. A system monitor that drains your battery is a bad joke; this one doesn't.
Does it also show battery health?
Yes — Notchy has a full battery health readout (cycle count, capacity, charging state) plus low-battery islands for your Mac and connected devices. See the battery health page for details.