Your MacBook notch,
but useful.
Hover the notch — it pops open. Drag a file toward it, the Shelf opens to catch it. Music, Pomodoro, Quick Actions, Notes, Calculator, Reminders, Habits, Weather, Network, QR Code, Unit Converter, Random, Hash, Audio Controls, Countdown To, App Shortcuts, Timers, World Clock, Clipboard, System, Calendar, AirPods, Shelf — 23 swappable widgets with a live activity pill that flanks the notch when something's running. Free. Open source. Auto-updating. Blends invisibly with your hardware notch when collapsed.
The official NotchPop mascot.
-->📥 Drag-to-open Shelf
Start dragging a file anywhere near the top of the screen — the notch auto-expands and the Shelf tab activates so you can drop it in. Drag it back out to Finder, email, Slack, anywhere. No copies, no upload.
🎵 Music
Album art, track info, and full transport controls — play, pause, skip — for Apple Music and Spotify. Scrubbing progress bar that you can drag.
🍅 Pomodoro
Focus timer with phase picker pills (Focus / Short / Long), inline duration popover, daily goal, and strict mode to lock yourself in. 12 end-of-timer sounds with a Preview button in Settings.
🕐 Timers
Stopwatch and countdown combined into one tab with a mode picker. Lap support on the stopwatch, ±30s nudges on the countdown.
🌍 World Clock
Up to 4 cities with custom labels and any of macOS's 600+ timezones. Live offsets at a glance. Configure from Settings → World Clock.
📝 Notes
Auto-saving scratchpad inside the notch. Type, switch tabs, close — your text is still there. Debounced writes so it never thrashes the disk.
📋 Clipboard & 💻 System
Twelve widgets total. Clipboard keeps a recent copy history. System surfaces CPU + RAM. Calendar shows today's next events. AirPods displays L/R/Case battery when connected. Quick Actions gives you Lock / Sleep / Screenshot / Mission Control / system pref shortcuts in one tap. Weather pulls live conditions from Open-Meteo (free, no API key) with a one-tap °F/°C toggle. All toggleable in Settings → Tabs.
🎚 Live activity pills
When music's playing or a Pomodoro is running, a single integrated wide black pill flanks the notch — album art on the left, animated audio bars or countdown text on the right, plus a thin progress line at the bottom that tracks track elapsed / phase progress. Pomodoro takes priority over music. Toggleable.
🔋 Inline battery
Always visible in the top-right of the expanded notch. Plug in — a charging cheer briefly expands the notch, then it tucks itself away. Like AirPods, for power.
⌨ Settings gear in the notch
A gear icon sits in the top-right of the expanded notch (next to battery and the version stamp). One click and Settings opens — no need to fish around the menu bar.
🚀 Auto-update
Powered by Sparkle with EdDSA-signed appcasts. Checks every 4 hours, asks before installing, and posts system notifications throughout. Set it and forget it.
🫥 Hardware-blending notch
Collapsed shape matches your physical notch exactly — same width, same continuous (squircle) corners. Nudge width, height extension, and corner radius from Settings → Behavior → Notch fit.
🎬 3-scene welcome
First launch plays a hue-shifting gradient with three scenes — Your workflow, faster. → Drop files in. → Tabs are yours. Replayable from Settings → About.
⚡ App Shortcuts & Connections
Pin any macOS app or URL to the App Shortcuts tab — click a tile, app opens. Build automations in Settings → Connections: when Pomodoro focus starts, launch your IDE. When charging starts, play a chime. When music starts, run a Shortcut. Triggers cover Pomodoro phase changes, charging, music start/stop, countdown end, and app launch; actions cover launch app, open URL, run macOS Shortcut, play sound, copy text. Test any trigger from Settings.
⚙️ Thirteen widgets, 60+ knobs
Mix and match in Settings → Tabs. Reorder. Show / hide. Pick your default starting tab. 50+ preferences across Tabs, Behavior, Appearance, Pomodoro, World Clock, Updates, Diagnostics, and About — including per-tab options (marquee scroll speed, Apple Music poll interval, shelf max items + thumbnails + click action, calendar event count + time range, weather refresh + wind toggle, notes font size + monospaced, clipboard history size), 7 accent colors, 12/24-hour clock, reduce motion, animation-speed multiplier, quiet hours (suppress peeks during chosen times), separate hide-timer / hide-music live activity toggles, and a Force Update button if Sparkle ever gets confused.
🪶 Native & tiny
SwiftUI + AppKit. ~1.9 MB DMG, drag-to-Applications installer. No Electron, no JavaScript. Boots before your menu bar finishes painting.
🔓 Free forever
MIT licensed. No subscription. No login. NotchNook charges $25 — this does the same things, plus widgets they don't have (Pomodoro, Timers, World Clock, Notes, Clipboard, System), and costs nothing.
How it stacks up
Download it like any other Mac app.
No setup. No Terminal. No technical stuff. Standard Mac install — drag onto Applications.
Tap the button below. Your browser saves NotchPop.dmg. Double-click it — Finder opens a window with NotchPop on the left and Applications on the right.
Drag the NotchPop icon onto the Applications shortcut. macOS copies it across instantly. Eject the DMG when you're done.
Double-click NotchPop in Applications — macOS shows a security warning. Click "Done" (don't move to Trash).
Then open System Settings → Privacy & Security. Scroll down — "NotchPop was blocked". Click "Open Anyway", then "Open".
After this, double-click works normally. macOS adds it to the allow-list permanently.
Developers: build from source instead →
If you'd rather build it yourself, you'll need Homebrew and either Xcode 15+ from the App Store
OR just Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install — much smaller).
$ git clone https://github.com/bendawg2010/NotchPop.git
$ cd NotchPop
$ ./scripts/build.sh- The script auto-installs
xcodegenvia Homebrew, generates the Xcode project, and runsxcodebuildin Release. - Move
build/Build/Products/Release/NotchPop.appinto/Applications.