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.
The free iStat Menus & Stats alternative
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, giving you a completely free system monitor.
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.