The best notch apps for Mac in 2026

The notch on a MacBook can do more than hold a camera. Notch apps turn it into a Dynamic Island: music controls, your calendar, a shelf for files, nicer volume popups, and lately, a place to watch your coding agents.

We make Nano, one of the apps below, so we've stuck to things you can check. Prices, licenses and features come from each app's own site, GitHub page or Homebrew listing, checked on October 23, 2026.

Quick picks

• Best free all-in-one: Nano
• Best paid Dynamic Island: Alcove
• Best free music and file shelf: Boring Notch
• Most widgets for free: Atoll
• Paid all-rounder with notifications: DynamicLake Pro
• Only nicer volume and brightness popups: MediaMate
• Only coding agents: Vibe Island (paid) or Open Vibe Island (free)
• Hide the notch instead: TopNotch

At a glance

The apps

1. Nano

Nano is a free, open source Dynamic Island that covers both jobs people want from the notch. Hover it for a dashboard with music (Apple Music and Spotify), your calendar and meeting links, weather, a focus timer, a camera mirror and a file tray you can AirDrop from. It replaces the macOS volume, brightness, Bluetooth and charging popups with slim cards.

It also watches your coding agents. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and 9 more show their status and how much of your usage limit is left, and you can approve a command or answer a question from the island. Add-ons you turn on as needed add local voice dictation (Quill), per-app volume up to 200% (Mixer) and a to-do list for each project (Cue).

Nano is free and open source under the MIT license. It needs macOS 14.6 or later on an Apple silicon Mac, works around the notch or floating below the menu bar on Macs without one, and is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple. There's no account and no analytics.

Good to know: it's Apple silicon only, and it's new: the first release came out in October 2026. If you only care about agents, Vibe Island supports more of them.

Best for: anyone who wants one free app for the dashboard and their coding agents.

2. Alcove

Alcove is a polished, paid Dynamic Island: Live Activities, notifications, HUDs you can customize, Lock Screen widgets and swipe gestures. It costs $13.99 once for up to 3 Macs, with a 72-hour trial, and needs macOS 15. Install it from tryalcove.com or with brew install --cask alcove.

Best for: people who want a refined, native-feeling island and don't mind paying.

3. Boring Notch

Boring Notch is the best-known free, open source notch app, with about 11,000 stars on GitHub. It has music with a visualizer, a calendar, a file shelf with AirDrop and full HUD replacement, and needs macOS 14. It isn't signed with an Apple Developer ID, so macOS warns you the first time you open it unless you install it with Homebrew.

Best for: a free, open source music and file shelf notch.

4. Atoll

Atoll started as a fork of Boring Notch and adds a lot on top: Lock Screen widgets, CPU, GPU, memory and network stats, clipboard history, a color picker and AI usage tracking. It's free under GPL-3.0 and installs with brew install --cask atoll. See github.com/Ebullioscopic/Atoll.

Best for: the most widgets you can get for free.

5. DynamicLake Pro

DynamicLake Pro is a paid all-rounder: music, calendar and meeting alerts, notifications, calls, a timer, drag and drop with AirDrop, and plugins. It's $13.99 once for up to 3 devices on Gumroad, and the developer says it works on MacBooks with and without a notch.

Best for: a paid island with notifications and calls.

6. MediaMate

MediaMate replaces the volume, brightness and keyboard backlight popups and adds Now Playing, either in the notch or in a separate bubble. It's €6.99 once and needs macOS 13. It has no calendar, shelf or agent features.

Best for: people who only want better HUDs.

7. Vibe Island

Vibe Island is a paid app focused only on coding agents. It monitors about 30 of them, lets you allow or deny commands, review plans and answer questions, and shows usage limits. It also handles SSH sessions and more than 20 terminals. It's $19.99 for one Mac and needs macOS 14. It has no music, calendar or file shelf.

Best for: heavy agent users who want the widest agent support and nothing else.

Other coding agent apps

• Open Vibe Island: free and open source (GPL-3.0), with monitoring and approvals for several agents. brew install --cask open-island
• AgentPeek: paid, from $14.99, with approvals and Claude usage windows.
• Vibe Notch (formerly Claude Island): free (Apache-2.0), for Claude Code only.
• Notchi: free (GPL-3.0), for Claude Code and Codex.

TopNotch

TopNotch doesn't add an island. It hides the notch with a black menu bar and rounded corners. It's free, from the makers of CleanShot, and installs with brew install --cask topnotch.

Best for: people who'd rather not see the notch at all.

What happened to NotchNook?

NotchNook was one of the most popular notch apps. As of October 23, 2026, its website, notchnook.app, is offline. The developer's site, lo.cafe, has a statement from NotchNook's founder saying users lost access around July 2026 and announcing a successor called NOOTCH. If NotchNook stopped working for you, see NotchNook alternatives.

How to choose

• You want it free: Nano, Boring Notch or Atoll. All three are open source.
• You use coding agents: Nano if you also want the dashboard, Vibe Island or Open Vibe Island if you only want agents.
• Your Mac has no notch: Nano, DynamicLake Pro, MediaMate and Vibe Island all work without one.
• You're on an older macOS: MediaMate supports macOS 13. Alcove needs macOS 15.

Questions

Is there a free notch app for Mac?

Yes. Nano, Boring Notch and Atoll are free and open source. Of the three, only Nano has coding agent approvals.

Do notch apps work on Macs without a notch?

Some do. Nano floats below the menu bar on Macs without a notch, and DynamicLake Pro, MediaMate and Vibe Island work without one too.

Are notch apps safe?

Check two things: whether the app is signed and notarized by Apple, and whether you can read its code. Notarized apps open without a security warning. Open source apps such as Nano, Boring Notch and Atoll let anyone check what they do.

Try Nano

1. Download the latest .dmg from GitHub Releases, or run brew install --cask valenxi0/tap/nano with Homebrew.
2. Open it and drag Nano to Applications.
3. Open Nano. Setup asks only for the permissions the features you pick need.

The source is on GitHub.