The best MacBook notch apps in 2026 (and how to hide the notch)

Which MacBooks have a notch?

If you don’t have a notch, don’t stop reading: some of these apps draw a small island at the top of any screen, including external displays.

The notch apps at a glance

Prices in US dollars, checked on each maker’s site on 13 October 2026.

The apps, one by one

Boring Notch: best free notch app

Boring Notch is free and open source (GPL-3.0), with around 11,000 stars on GitHub. Hover the notch for music controls with a visualizer, your calendar, and a file shelf you can AirDrop from. It can also replace the volume and brightness pop-ups. It runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple Silicon and Intel, and a 2.8 release candidate shipped in October 2026.

Alcove: the most polished Dynamic Island

Alcove ($14.99) brings the iPhone’s Dynamic Island idea to the Mac: live activities, notifications, custom pop-ups, lock screen widgets and swipe gestures. It needs macOS 15 or later and is actively updated.

DynamicLake Pro: the most features for one price

DynamicLake Pro ($13.99 one-time on Gumroad; older reviews quote higher prices) packs in notifications, drag and drop with a file converter, call handling, AirDrop, timers, calendar and meeting alerts, its own music view, a schedule and weather glance, and plugins. It needs macOS 14 Sonoma.

Atoll: open source, built on Boring Notch

Atoll is free (GPL-3.0) and credits Boring Notch as its starting point. It adds live activities for Focus, screen recording, privacy indicators and battery, plus system stats and lock screen widgets. Its README says it needs a MacBook with a notch.

MediaMate: better pop-ups, not a whole island

MediaMate replaces macOS’s volume, brightness and keyboard pop-ups with iPhone-style ones and adds a Now Playing view, with an optional style that expands from the notch. It’s a one-time €6.99 on Gumroad, with a free limited version, and works on Macs with or without a notch.

NotchDesk: your next meeting and your clipboard

This is our app, so weigh this section accordingly. Most notch apps are built around music and live activities. NotchDesk is built around the two things we reach for all day:

• Your next meeting: a live countdown beside the notch, an alert that grows out of it a minute before each event, and a Join button for Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, FaceTime and Slack huddles. ⌃⌘ J joins from any app.
• Your clipboard: a private history of text, links, code, images, files and screenshots, with Quick Paste (⌃⌘ V) in any app and search inside screenshots.
• A file shelf with AirDrop, notes, timers, a calculator and other small tools in a Tools tab.

Macs without a notch get the same panel as a small island at the top of the screen. No account and no analytics. It needs macOS 14 or later.

Notchmeister and TopNotch

Notchmeister from the Iconfactory is a free bit of fun: glowing, sparkling effects around the notch when your pointer comes near. TopNotch, from the makers of CleanShot, does the opposite: it paints the menu bar black so the notch disappears into it. Both are free; neither has been updated much recently.

What happened to NotchNook?

NotchNook was one of the first popular notch apps ($25 one-time or $3 a month). When we checked on 13 October 2026, its maker’s website (lo.cafe) wasn’t loading, and Homebrew had disabled its download in September 2026 as unreachable. It may come back, but we wouldn’t buy it until it does.

There’s also a wave of newer, smaller apps that put a clipboard or a notepad in the notch (NotchClip, NotchPad, Notch Space and others). They’re worth a look if you only want that one feature.

How to hide the notch instead

If the notch bothers you more than it helps, you have three options:

1. For one app: in Finder, select the app, press ⌘ I and tick Scale to fit below built-in camera. The app then uses only the screen area below the notch. The option appears only for apps that haven’t been updated for the notch.
2. Everywhere, with TopNotch: the free app blacks out the menu bar so the notch blends in, and it works with dynamic wallpapers and multiple Spaces.
3. Everywhere, with a resolution below the notch: open System Settings → Displays → Advanced, turn on Show resolutions as list, then Show all resolutions. Pick a resolution with the same width but slightly less height than your current one (for example 1728 × 1080 instead of 1728 × 1117 on a 16-inch MacBook Pro). The menu bar moves below the notch, and you lose a sliver of screen.

Full-screen apps also hide the notch: macOS fills the menu bar area with black.

Which one should you pick?

• You want something free and fun: Boring Notch.
• You want it to feel like an iPhone: Alcove.
• You want everything, once: DynamicLake Pro.
• You spend your day in calls and copy-paste: NotchDesk. See also how to join meetings in one click and the best clipboard managers.
• You want the notch gone: TopNotch or a below-the-notch resolution.

Questions people ask

Which MacBooks have a notch?

The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro from 2021 onward, and the MacBook Air from the M2 model (2022) onward. The M1 MacBook Air, the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro and the MacBook Neo don’t have one.

Can you hide the notch on a MacBook?

Yes. Use the free TopNotch app, which blacks out the menu bar so the notch blends in, or choose a display resolution that sits entirely below the notch in System Settings → Displays → Advanced → Show resolutions as list.

Do notch apps work on Macs without a notch?

Several do. NotchDesk shows the same panel as a small island at the top of the screen, and NotchNook did the same. Check each app’s site, because some (like Atoll) are built for notched MacBooks only.

Is there a Dynamic Island for Mac?

Not from Apple, but Alcove, DynamicLake Pro, Atoll and Boring Notch all turn the MacBook notch into a Dynamic Island-style area for music, notifications and live activities.

What is the best free notch app for Mac?

Boring Notch: it’s free and open source, needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later, and covers music controls, a calendar and a file shelf with AirDrop. Atoll, which builds on it, is also free.

Sources

• Alcove
• Boring Notch on GitHub
• DynamicLake
• DynamicLake Pro on Gumroad
• Atoll on GitHub
• MediaMate on Gumroad
• Notchmeister on the Mac App Store
• TopNotch
• Homebrew: NotchNook cask status
• Apple: About the camera housing on MacBook Pro and MacBook Air (Scale to fit below built-in camera)
• Apple: MacBook Air technical specifications
• Apple: MacBook Pro technical specifications

We make NotchDesk, so we have a stake in this topic. We’ve tried to be fair to every app mentioned, and checked prices and features on each maker’s own site on the date above. Spotted something out of date? Email hello@notchdesk.com and we’ll fix it.