Best Notch Apps for Mac: Droppy, Alcove, Boring Notch, Notchmeister, and TopNotch

The notch on recent MacBooks is either wasted space or a feature, depending on the app you run. Some apps turn it into an iPhone-style Dynamic Island for music, files, and notifications. Others hide it, or just have fun with it.

This roundup first ran in February 2025, and the category has changed a lot since. NotchNook, one of the apps that made notch utilities popular, is no longer available: its website returns an error, and a July 2026 dispute over control of the company left new buyers without a reliable way to get it. We cover what happened and the best replacements in our NotchNook alternatives guide. Meanwhile, newer apps such as Droppy have raised the bar.

Here are the five notch apps worth considering today.

Quick Verdict

Choose Droppy if you want the most capable notch app: file tray, media player, clipboard history, file sharing, and dozens of built-in extensions, for a low one-time price, on Macs with or without a notch.

Choose Alcove if you want the most polished Dynamic Island look, with fluid animations, notifications, live activities, and custom HUDs.

Choose Boring Notch if you want a free, open-source notch app with music controls, a file shelf with AirDrop, and HUD replacements.

Choose Notchmeister if you just want to have fun with the notch.

Choose TopNotch if you want the notch to blend into a black menu bar.

Feature Comparison

Droppy

Droppy calls itself a "supercharged Dynamic Island" and is the most feature-packed app here. The notch opens into a file tray, and a floating tray appears when you jiggle a file while dragging it, holding it until you drop it somewhere else. Around that sit a media player (including a floating player and a Liquid Glass player on the lock screen), clipboard history, free file sharing, and live activities for music, meetings, uploads, and volume.

Its 39 free built-in extensions, called Droplets, add things like a Pomodoro timer, a terminal in the notch, meeting controls for Zoom, Teams, and Meet, OCR, window snapping, a radial menu, and progress for AI coding tools. You switch on only the ones you want. On Macs without a notch, the island turns into a full player, so it works on desktops and external displays too. A free iPhone companion, currently in beta, syncs your clipboard, files, and notes.

Pricing: $9.99 once (our checkout showed €8.55, and Droppy sets lower prices in 126 countries). One license covers two Macs, includes every future version, and comes with a 14-day refund window. A 3-day trial unlocks every feature without payment details. It requires macOS 14 or later.

The tradeoff: with this many features, there's a lot to configure, and the app changes quickly.

Alcove

Alcove focuses on feel rather than feature count. Its site highlights fluid transitions, instant notifications, live activities, swipe gestures, customizable HUDs, and lock screen widgets, all in a fast native app. It's the closest match to the iPhone's Dynamic Island.

It doesn't advertise a file tray, calendar, or clipboard, so pair it with other apps for those.

Pricing: $14.99 once, with all future updates included and use on up to three devices. There's a 72-hour trial and a 14-day refund window. Version 1.7 requires macOS 15 or later. Alcove notes that it relies on private macOS APIs, so Apple could break features in a future update.

Boring Notch

Boring Notch is free and open source (GPL-3.0), and it's far from boring now. The notch becomes a music control center with a visualizer and a playback live activity. It also adds calendar and reminders, a camera mirror, a charging indicator, customizable gestures, a file shelf with AirDrop, and replacement HUDs for volume, brightness, and keyboard backlight.

It runs on Apple silicon and Intel Macs with macOS 14 or later. Install the DMG from GitHub or use Homebrew:

brew install --cask TheBoredTeam/boring-notch/boring-notch

The developers don't have an Apple Developer account yet, so macOS warns about an unidentified developer on first launch and you need to approve the app manually (the Homebrew install handles this for you). The latest stable release is v2.7.3 from November 2025, with v2.8 release candidates published in September and October 2026.

Notchmeister

Notchmeister from The Iconfactory doesn't hide the notch or add tools. It adds effects when your pointer moves near it: Glow, Cylon, Plasma Leak, Festive, Nano Radar, Expando, Fusion Dice, and AutoToot. It's light on resources, and if your Mac has no notch, it can even add a fake one.

It's free on the Mac App Store, needs macOS 11 or later, and its source code is on GitHub. It's a toy, but a charming one.

TopNotch

TopNotch makes the notch disappear by blending it into a black menu bar area. It supports dynamic wallpapers, works across multiple displays and Spaces, runs in the background watching for wallpaper changes, and can add rounded corners to your wallpaper.

It's free, requires macOS 11 or later, and is made by MTW, the team behind CleanShot. It does one thing and has almost nothing to configure.

Which One Should You Choose?

Choose Droppy if you:

• Want one app for files, music, clipboard, and quick tools
• Use a Mac without a notch, or external displays
• Prefer a low one-time price

Choose Alcove if you:

• Care most about smooth, iPhone-style animations
• Want notifications and custom HUDs, and use other apps for files
• Run macOS 15 or later

Choose Boring Notch if you:

• Want Dynamic Island features for free
• Prefer open source and don't mind approving an unsigned app

Choose Notchmeister if you want something fun, and TopNotch if you want the notch to vanish with zero setup.

Final Verdict

Droppy is the best notch app for most people right now. It does more than any other app here, works on Macs with and without a notch, and costs less than Alcove.

Alcove is the pick for polish, if you mainly want a beautiful Dynamic Island with notifications and HUDs.

Boring Notch is the best free option, with a surprisingly long feature list.

Notchmeister and TopNotch remain great free single-purpose apps: one celebrates the notch, the other hides it.

If you used NotchNook, see our NotchNook alternatives guide for a closer look at replacing it, including Yoink for file shelves.

Catch these apps on sale: many paid Mac utilities, including notch apps, run discounts at least once a year, most often around Black Friday. Subscribe to the Apps.Deals newsletter to hear when the deals arrive.

Note: First published in February 2025 and updated in October 2026. Features and prices are current as of October 2026 and can change; verify them on each official site before buying.

Affiliate disclosure: This post contains affiliate links for Droppy and CleanShot. Apps.Deals may earn a commission if you purchase through them, at no additional cost to you.