Changelog

What’s new in each version of NotchDesk. Every update is included with a NotchDesk license.

1.4Latest

Tools in your notch

From this version, NotchDesk is a paid app with a 14-day free trial. One license unlocks everything: at launch, a founders’ lifetime license for the first 100 buyers, then a subscription.

The Tools tab

  • A new Tools tab in the notch: a grid of small tools, each with a full view. Choose which ones appear in Settings → General → Tools tab. Also as notchdesk://open/tools.
  • Notch tabs your way. Reorder the tabs, hide any of them except Calendar, choose the tab the notch opens on (Calendar, the last one used or any other), and turn the haptic tap on a Force Touch trackpad on or off, in Settings → General.

New tools

  • Quick Notes (): plain-text notes with pins, search, - [ ] checklists and Markdown export, saved on your Mac in a file only you can read.
  • Timers, stopwatch and alarms: countdowns beside the notch, an alert with Stop, +1 min and +5 min, a stopwatch with laps, and alarms once or on chosen weekdays. They go off while NotchDesk is running; one missed during sleep goes off once on wake if it was due in the last 6 hours.
  • Calculator and unit converter: results as you type, percentages like “15% off 80”, conversions like “5 km in mi”, a history, and currency conversion with the European Central Bank’s rates, downloaded only when you convert a currency.
  • Color picker (): copy any color on screen in 9 formats, keep recent colors in a palette, and check contrast against WCAG AA and AAA.
  • Screen tools: capture an area of the screen as an image, make QR codes, copy text from the screen () and scan QR codes and barcodes. Text and codes are read with Apple’s Vision framework on your Mac.
  • System monitor: CPU, memory, network and disk on the tile, plus charts, uptime, battery health and thermal state in the full view. A CPU, memory or network readout can show beside the notch when nothing else is there; it’s off by default.
  • Quick toggles: Keep Awake, Dark Mode, Hide Desktop Icons, Show Hidden Files, Lock Screen, Sleep Display, Start Screen Saver and Mute Mic.
  • Downloads: a note beside the notch when a download finishes, with Open, Show in Finder, Add to Shelf, AirDrop and Copy, and your recent downloads in the tile.
  • Dictionary and Translate: offline definitions as you type, from the dictionaries built into macOS, and Define for text clips. Translate works on macOS 15 and later, with Apple’s on-device translation.
  • Shortcuts launcher: pin up to 12 shortcuts and run them from the notch, with text you type or your latest clip as input.
  • Countdowns and break reminders: countdowns to dates, yearly birthdays and anniversaries, imports from your calendars, and optional break, 20-20-20 eye, water and stand-up reminders that wait during calendar events.

More in the notch

  • Mirror tab: check your camera any time, not only from the meeting alert. The camera runs only while the tab is open, and nothing is recorded.
  • Scroll on the notch to change the volume, or the built-in display’s brightness where macOS allows it, with a level beside the notch.

Permissions

  • New permissions are asked for only when a tool needs them: Screen Recording for screen tools, the camera for the Mirror tab, control of System Events for Dark Mode, and Accessibility to lock the screen at once. Download alerts are on by default, so macOS asks once for access to your Downloads folder. Every permission, explained

Privacy policy

  • The privacy policy now covers exchange rates from frankfurter.app (only when you convert a currency), screen captures and text recognition on your Mac with temporary files deleted, the Downloads watcher, Quick Notes, the Mirror tab, the dictionary and Translate, the Shortcuts launcher and the links for the new tools.

1.3

A notch built for meetings

Meetings

  • Join with one key. joins the meeting in progress or the next video meeting starting soon; copies its link. Also as notchdesk://join and notchdesk://join/copy.
  • Meeting alert. A minute before each event (you can choose, or limit it to video meetings), the notch grows into an alert with a countdown, Join (or Open in Calendar), Snooze for 1 or 5 minutes and Dismiss, with a notification instead when the notch is off.
  • Countdown rules. Keep tentative events, unanswered invitations, events without a link or titles with chosen words out of the countdown, and skip a single meeting.
  • Time awareness. “Free for 45m” and time-left status above the agenda, and warnings for overlapping and back-to-back events.
  • Live meeting: time left and a progress line beside the notch during video meetings, a dot when your microphone or camera seems to be in use, and a heads-up when the next meeting follows straight on.
  • Camera check: a camera mirror in the meeting alert, never recorded.
  • Join routing: open Zoom and Teams meetings in their apps or each service in a browser you choose, and Google Meet in the calendar’s Google account.

Agenda and focus

  • Reminders in the agenda. Reminders due today and overdue, checked off from the notch.
  • Quick add (): type “Lunch w/ Sam Fri 1pm 45m /work” for an event, or “Pay invoice tomorrow” for a reminder. English only.
  • Month tab with event dots, ISO week numbers and up to four world clocks, with time travel.
  • Focus timer (): focus until your next meeting, with streaks, weekly stats, an optional calendar block and Shortcuts at start and end.
  • Weather: current conditions above the agenda and the forecast for upcoming events, from Open-Meteo. Off by default.
  • Time to leave: travel time to events with an address, from Apple Maps, with a “Leave now” alert. Off by default.

Calendar meets clipboard

  • Clips linked to meetings. What you copy during a meeting shows up in its details, with notes for each meeting and one-click copies of the join link, attendee emails and dial-in.
  • Add to Calendar from copied text with a date and time.
  • Copy my availability (): free times as text, worked out on your Mac.

Clipboard

  • Paste as plain text (). Apps on your always-plain list get plain text whenever NotchDesk pastes a clip.
  • Paste Stack (): queue clips and paste them in order.
  • 27 text transforms, from case changes to JSON, Base64 and JWT decoding, and image actions including convert, compress, resize, strip metadata and background removal.
  • Snippets with calendar placeholders such as {next_meeting_link}, and import from Raycast and Espanso.
  • File shelf in the notch with Keep, AirDrop, Share and Quick Look.

Privacy

  • Secret detection. Card numbers, one-time codes, API keys, tokens and private keys are masked and deleted automatically. Mark as Secret and Not a Secret in clip menus.
  • Retention rules by type and by app, and a storage meter with clean-up.
  • Privacy curtain (on automatically during video meetings) that hides clipboard contents on screen, and an option to hide NotchDesk from screen capture (some recording apps on macOS 15 and later can still capture it).

Notch and displays

  • Now Playing (best effort) with artwork and controls for Music and Spotify (other players too on macOS before 15.4).
  • Battery notices, and volume, brightness and Bluetooth headphone notices.
  • Display options: the built-in display, the main display or the one with the mouse, per-display on and off, a compact island, and hiding in full screen.

Siri & Shortcuts

  • 14 voice shortcuts. Add them in Settings → Siri & Shortcuts with Add to Siri or Add All, then say “Hey Siri, What’s my next meeting” on your Mac. Join your meeting, add to your calendar, start or stop focus, show or hide your clipboard, play or skip music and open the shelf by voice. Works through the Shortcuts app, on the Mac where NotchDesk is installed.
  • Spoken answers. Your next meeting, today, tomorrow and when you’re free are answered out loud, in the voice and speed you choose, and beside the notch. Speech can be turned off. English only.
  • Any shortcut can be renamed in Shortcuts.

For power users

  • notchdesk:// links for joining, quick add, the Month tab, the shelf, Now Playing, the privacy curtain and more.
  • Automation (off by default): a local server, the notchdesk command-line tool and an MCP server for Claude and other AI assistants, plus URL actions for live activities.
  • Sync between Macs (opt-in) through your own iCloud Drive.

Privacy policy

  • The privacy policy now covers the new optional requests (Weather to Open-Meteo, Time to leave to Apple Maps, sync to your iCloud Drive), Spotify album art for Now Playing, the automation server, what an AI assistant you connect can read, and what Siri & Shortcuts pass to NotchDesk.

1.2

NotchCal is now NotchDesk

  • New name. NotchCal is now NotchDesk, because it does a lot more than calendars.
  • Coming from NotchCal? Your clipboard history and settings move over automatically, and NotchDesk offers to move the old app to the Trash. The clipboard features start a 14-day trial when you update; your clips are kept either way.
  • Free trial and licenses. The first launch starts a 14-day trial of everything. In this version, the calendar stayed free after the trial and a one-time license for 1 or 3 Macs unlocked the clipboard features. Since 1.4, a license unlocks the whole app. Clips saved during the trial are kept.
  • License activation in the app. Paste your key in Settings to activate it, and deactivate a Mac when you move to a new one.
  • Update check. NotchDesk tells you when a new version is available.
  • Privacy. More password apps are excluded from clipboard history by default, including the Apple Passwords menu bar item, KeePassXC and Proton Pass, as well as System Settings.
  • Reliability and privacy fixes throughout.

1.1

Your clipboard, in the notch

  • Clipboard history of text, links, code, colors, images, files and screenshots, sorted by type and tagged with the app each clip came from.
  • Notch clipboard shelf (): search, type filters, click a card to paste, drag cards into any app, and drop files or text onto the notch to stash them. A “Copied” flash beside the notch.
  • Quick Paste Anywhere (): a search panel over any app with ↩ to paste, ⌘↩ to copy, ⌘1–9 for the latest clips, ⇥ to filter and ⌘P to pin.
  • Library (): a sidebar by type, app and your own categories, a card grid and an inspector.
  • Text recognition in screenshots and images, on your Mac, with Copy text.
  • Multi-clips, clip reminders, pinning and automatic screenshot capture.
  • Your last 10 clips in the menu bar dropdown.

1.0

Your calendar, beside the notch

  • Menu bar countdown to your next event, as one item or one item per account.
  • Dropdown agenda with account tabs, events grouped by day, countdown badges and one-click Join for Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex and more.
  • The notch shows your next event beside it. Hover to expand into your agenda and full event details: time, calendar and account, location, organizer, your RSVP, guests and their responses, notes, Join, Open in Calendar and Copy.
  • Works with every calendar in macOS Calendar, including iCloud, Google and Exchange.
  • Options to hide declined and all-day events, and to look ahead anywhere from 1 to 30 days.