n0tch
Developer preview · macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon
The notch,
finally useful.
Your music, volume, downloads and AI tasks, and a spinning record on your lock screen. Native Swift. No account. No telemetry.
Hover. Press. Scroll.
It is all one surface.
The line
A line that
tells you things.
One idea runs through everything n0tch shows: a line that draws around the notch, from the left corner to the right. Empty is nothing. Full is everything.
- Volume and brightness fill it as you press the keys.
- Brightness gets its own colour.
- Plug in and a green line grows to your charge, with a light running along it.
- Low battery makes it breathe: amber, then red.
Now playing
Your music,
in glass.
Hover the notch and it opens into a frosted card with big, evenly spaced controls. It follows whatever the Mac is playing: Apple Music, Spotify, a browser tab, anything.
- Cover, title and progress at a glance.
- Pick where the sound plays from the output button.
- Scroll over the notch for volume or to skip, with a tap on your trackpad for every step.
Lock screen
A record,
on your lock screen.
While music plays and your Mac is locked, a large record spins above the lock screen. The needle lowers, the record spins up, and the cover is the label. Pause and it coasts to a stop.
Experimental. It uses a private macOS feature, so it can break after a macOS update. Tested on macOS 27. The area around the clock and sign-in field is always left clear.
Activities
Anything can
use the notch.
A small n0tch command lets scripts, builds and AI tools draw on it. Hooks for Claude Code and Codex are included, so the notch can tell you when an agent finishes or needs you.
Try it
Now you.
Hover the notch.
This is a working copy of the real thing. Hover it, press the buttons, pick a scene.
A working demo: hover the notch, press a button, pick a scene below.
The details
Small things,
done properly.
Downloads trace themselves
Safari, Chrome and Firefox downloads draw their own progress around the notch, finish with a green check, and offer a one-click Show in Finder.
Keys and gestures
Volume and brightness keys draw a line instead of the system pop-up. Two-finger scroll over the notch changes volume or skips tracks, with a tap of haptics on every step. Press and hold to mute.
The shelf
Drop a file, image, link or text on the notch to park it. Send it to AirDrop or drag it back out. Clears after an hour unless pinned.
Timers and Focus
Start a timer and the line drains around the notch. Your Focus mode sits beside it, so you always know when Do Not Disturb is on.
Battery that tells the truth
A glyph drawn from your real charge, warnings at 30, 20, 10 and 5 percent, and a green flash when you are full.
Real audio spectrum
Optional. Make the meter move with the actual sound. Only levels are measured on your Mac; nothing is recorded.
One Settings window
Every switch in one place, each with a plain explanation, from haptics to how tall the notch should sit.
Any Mac
Built for the notch, and it draws a virtual one at the top of the screen on Macs without one.
Native, small, quiet
Swift, SwiftUI and AppKit. No Electron, no web view, nothing running that you did not ask for.
Privacy
Almost nothing
leaves your Mac.
n0tch has no account and no analytics. The only time it talks to the internet is to look up an album cover from Apple's public iTunes search when your player does not provide one. You can turn that off in Settings.
- AccountsNone
- AnalyticsNone
- Crash reportsNone
- AdvertisingNone
- Network callsSong title and artist, to Apple, for a cover. Optional.1
- Commands and hooksA private socket on your Mac.Local
Give the notch
a job.
n0tch 0.1.0 developer preview for Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 14 or later. Signed and notarized by Apple.
Open the disk image and drag n0tch to Applications. On first launch, allow Accessibility so n0tch can take over the volume and brightness keys. All versions and checksums.