Every recent MacBook has a black cut-out at the top of the screen. I look past it a hundred times a day. Meanwhile the things I actually wanted to glance at were somewhere else: the song playing in another Space, a message banner that slid away before I read it, a meeting I remembered only once it had started.
NotchX puts them in the notch. Closed, it's two small icons either side of the camera. Hover, and it drops straight down, at the same width, with the rest.
What it shows
- Music: the album spins beside the camera; hover for the track, the controls and the progress. The colours come from the artwork. Apple Music and Spotify.
- Messages: who wrote and from which app, a two-line preview, and a click opens it in that app. Messages, Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, Telegram, Zalo and more.
- Calls: who's calling and from which app, then your mic and a timer once you're on. Information only: no buttons, and it never opens over your work.
- Meetings: from your calendar. A few minutes before, a card with Join and a five-minute snooze.
- Weather: when nothing else is going on, a small sky and the temperature. Click for the next five hours.
- Volume and brightness: a slim slider in the notch instead of the big macOS overlay. AirPods battery and the charger show up here too.
One thing at a time
Only one thing holds the notch. A call wins over everything, then volume and brightness, the charger and AirPods, a new message, a meeting, music, and last the weather. When the call ends, your music is back.
Light on the battery
Something that sits on screen all day can't be heavy. Every animation in NotchX runs off one shared clock and stops while the screen is asleep or locked. With music playing and the notch closed it uses about 5% CPU, and close to nothing when idle.
Private
Messages and calls are read from the banners on your own Mac, and meetings from your calendar. None of it is sent anywhere, and there's no account. The weather asks for your location to fetch the forecast.
What's next
I'm working on a file shelf you can drop files onto and AirDrop from, timers and focus sessions, and a quiet view of your Claude Code and Codex sessions, so the notch can tell you when one needs you.
Get it
- Free for 14 days, then $9.99 once for one Mac. Updates included.
- macOS 13 or later, on a MacBook with a notch.
- Signed and notarised by Apple.