The Best Mac Volume HUD Replacement
macOS Tahoe tucked the volume and brightness HUD into a small corner popover; older macOS parks a grey square in the middle of your screen. Notchy shows both as a clear, animated bar in the notch — and can stop Tahoe's popover appearing at all.$24.99 one-time, with a 7-day free trial.
Out of your way
The default macOS volume indicator blocks the center of your screen when watching a movie or presenting. Notchy moves it to the very top edge, animating beautifully out of the hardware notch.
All system HUDs supported
Notchy replaces not just your volume HUD, but also screen brightness, keyboard backlight, and even battery warnings with stunning Dynamic Island-style animations. Flip one switch and Notchy hides the stock macOS overlay entirely — its island becomes your only HUD.
Nothing parked in the middle of your screen
Other overlay replacements move the popup or restyle it — see the SlimHUD alternative page for that comparison. Notchy moves it into the notch entirely, and gives you gorgeous system HUDs alongside a full suite of productivity tools (like a clipboard manager) — all natively integrated into the notch.
Built for macOS Tahoe
On macOS 26 the system HUD lives in Control Center, so there is no overlay to hide. Notchy takes the hardware volume and brightness keys instead, makes the change itself and shows its own HUD — one indicator, where you're already looking. It can also keep Control Center's Now Playing panel from popping over the island when you press play or skip.
Native performance
Because it's written natively in SwiftUI, Notchy intercepts your media keys instantly with zero lag. The animations are buttery smooth at 120Hz on ProMotion displays.
Everything Notchy does, in one app
- 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
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- 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
- Custom islands through the local developer API (off by default)
- iPhone-style call island — Answer/Decline FaceTime on the notch
- Notch Terminal — real VT100/xterm shell in a PTY, its own tab
- Camera Guard — alert (or block) when any app opens your camera
- 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
- 134 languages, fully localized
- Native SwiftUI, tuned for Apple silicon
Mac Volume HUD — FAQ
Why did the volume HUD change in macOS Tahoe?
macOS 26 Tahoe replaced the big centre-screen volume and brightness overlay with a small popover drawn by Control Center in the top corner. It fits the Liquid Glass redesign, but it's easy to miss and pulls your eyes away from what you're doing.
How do I get the old volume HUD back on macOS Tahoe?
Install Notchy and turn on Settings → Popups → Volume & Brightness HUD → Replace System HUD. On Tahoe, Notchy takes the volume and brightness keys, applies the change itself and shows its own HUD in the notch or pill, so Tahoe's corner popover never appears. It needs Accessibility and Input Monitoring, and macOS's HUD comes back when you turn it off or quit Notchy.
Does it hide the Tahoe HUD for Touch Bar sliders?
No. On Touch Bar Macs the Control Strip volume and brightness sliders are Control Center controls that never send key presses, so nothing can stop macOS drawing its HUD for them. Physical keys and external keyboards are covered.
Can I hide the volume HUD while Focus is on?
Yes, since 1.0.201. Quiet Volume During Focus hides Notchy's volume HUD while a macOS Focus is active; the volume keys keep working. Quiet Brightness During Focus does the same for brightness, independently.
How do I change the volume indicator on Mac?
To replace the default center-screen volume indicator, you need a third-party HUD app. Notchy intercepts your volume keys and displays a sleek, animated volume bar emerging from the MacBook notch.
Can I replace the macOS volume HUD with a notch HUD?
Yes. Notchy replaces the centre-screen volume, brightness and keyboard backlight overlays with a HUD that renders in the notch instead, as part of one $24.99 one-time app with no tiers.
Does it work with external monitors?
Yes. If you change the volume on an external monitor, Notchy creates a beautiful 'floating pill' at the top of the screen to display the volume level, even if the display lacks a physical notch.
Can Notchy hide the default macOS volume popup completely?
Yes — turn on native HUD hiding in Notchy’s settings and the stock center-screen overlay stays out of sight while Notchy’s island handles volume and brightness. It’s strictly opt-in and the system HUD is restored automatically when you turn it off or quit Notchy.