OpenNotchi

Website: opennotchi.vercel.app · Download: latest release

A free, open-source "dynamic notch" for macOS: hover the MacBook notch to get now-playing controls, battery status, and a file tray with AirDrop. An alternative to paid apps like NotchNook and Alcove.

Features

• Notch that expands on hover, matching the physical camera housing (falls back to an elegant floating Dynamic Island pill on external displays without a notch)
• Multi-Display & Multi-Monitor: 3 selectable display targets in Settings: Built-in notch only, Follow active cursor screen, or All connected screens simultaneously
• 3D Spatial Animations: Authentic 3D perspective show/hide open animations (3D Trapdoor Flip, 3D Holographic Depth, and 3D Cube Roll) with top-hinge anchor physics and bevel specular highlights
• Smarthome & AC / Lamp Hub: 1-click climate control (thermostat dial, 16–30°C, Cool/Eco/Dry/Fan/Off modes, fan speed), ambient lighting studio with dimming sliders, smart plug power meters, and 1-tap scenes (Focus, Movie, Sleep, All Off) via Home Assistant API or Apple Shortcuts
• Now Playing with Spinning Vinyl Deck: Interactive album jacket where a grooved vinyl record slides out and rotates continuously during playback, with an ambient color aura backdrop matching the album art palette
• Complete Transport & Audio Controls: Integrated system volume slider with 1-click mute/unmute, shuffle, repeat, and favorite heart buttons
• Interactive Karaoke Lyrics: Synced lyrics with depth blur, hover play cues, and 1-click seeking by tapping any lyric line
• Closed Notch Dynamic Island: Interactive tap on mini artwork or animated waveform to play/pause directly from the closed notch
• Developer Tools: Built-in Port Inspector for active localhost servers with 1-click process termination, screen Color Eyedropper (HEX, RGB, Swift), Audio Device Switcher with L/R channels, and System Performance Monitor (CPU, RAM, Network I/O)
• Photobox & Deco Studio: Photobooth camera with 18 trending styles and Korean Deco Studio (custom doodle frames, stars, ribbons, stamps, pins, tape) with instant export to Tray
• Live Video Preview of YouTube videos right in the notch
• Spotify on other devices (Spotify Connect): see and control playback on other devices
• AirPods & Device Battery Drop-Down: Detailed Left, Right, and Charging Case battery percentages with native Apple SF symbols, plus fluid spring HUD for volume and brightness
• Tray: drag files onto the notch to park them, drag them back out later, double-click to open, right-click for Finder/AirDrop/OCR/Format conversion
• AirDrop & Instant OCR: drop files on the AirDrop zone to send immediately, or drop any image / PDF onto the Instant OCR zone to copy recognized text to clipboard (Apple Vision offline, 0 latency)
• Image Converter: 1-click convert parked images to WebP, PNG, or JPEG with compression
• Clipboard history: text and images, searchable, click to copy again. Skips items password managers mark as concealed
• Calendar & Meeting Reminders: today's upcoming events next to the player, with a Join button for Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex, and drop-down reminder banners
• Prayer times: the next prayer in the header and a banner at each prayer, calculated offline
• Timer: Pomodoro-style presets, countdown shown beside the notch while closed
• Mirror: camera preview up to 1080p with looks, ring light, portrait blur, and hand gestures (✌️ 👍 ✋)
• Markets: your own watchlist of IDX (.JK) and global stocks, crypto and currencies
• Weather in the notch header (Open-Meteo, no API key)
• Weather in the notch header (Open-Meteo, no API key): search a city or use your location
• Auto-update via Sparkle, from GitHub Releases
• Global shortcut (⌥⌘N by default, customizable) to toggle the notch; clicking elsewhere closes it
• Themes: Liquid Glass (macOS 26+), Liquid Glass Clear, Frosted, Music Adaptive (colors from the current cover), Album Art (blurred cover), Midnight, Aurora, Classic Black
• Accent color from the music, your Mac's accent, or a fixed color
• Border & shape: none / subtle / accent / music gradient / rainbow border, adjustable width and corner radius
• Battery level and charging state
• Settings: launch at login, hover delay, haptics, per-feature toggles, media sources

Download

Grab the latest .dmg from the Releases page, open it and drag OpenNotchi into Applications. The app isn't notarized yet, so on first launch go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.

Requirements

• macOS 14 Sonoma or later (works best on a MacBook with a notch)
• Xcode 16+ / Swift 5.10+ toolchain

Build & run

All commands run from the repo root (make help lists them):

make run        # debug build of the app, then launch it
make app        # release build
make install    # release build, copied to /Applications
make dist       # universal .dmg + .zip in apps/macos/dist
make web        # landing page at http://localhost:5173
make brand      # regenerate icon, logo and web assets

You can also open apps/macos/Package.swift in Xcode to edit the code. Run through make run rather than Xcode, though: the app needs its Info.plist (from the .app bundle) for the Automation permission prompt.

On first use macOS asks to let OpenNotchi control Spotify / Music (and your browser, for YouTube). For YouTube, also turn on Allow JavaScript from Apple Events in the browser (Chrome: View → Developer; Safari: Develop menu). If you said no, re-enable it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation. Ad-hoc signed debug builds may ask again after a rebuild.

Scripting

Other tools can drive the notch with a distributed notification named io.github.opennotchi.command whose object is open, close, toggle, or a tab name (home, lyrics, tray, clipboard, timer, mirror), or settings. peek-charging, peek-airpods, peek-volume, peek-brightness, peek-meeting and peek-prayer preview the live activities.

Project layout

This is a small monorepo:

OpenNotchi/
├── apps/
│   ├── macos/          the app (Swift Package)
│   │   ├── Sources/OpenNotchi/
│   │   │   ├── App/       entry point, AppDelegate, menu bar, brand mark
│   │   │   ├── Notch/     floating panel, notch shape, hover/open state
│   │   │   ├── Views/     SwiftUI: home, lyrics, tray, clipboard, timer, settings
│   │   │   ├── Media/     Spotify / Apple Music, artwork colors, lyrics
│   │   │   ├── Theme/     themes, accents, borders
│   │   │   ├── Features/  clipboard, timer, calendar, camera
│   │   │   ├── System/    battery (IOKit), global hotkey (Carbon)
│   │   │   ├── Tray/      tray storage, AirDrop
│   │   │   └── Settings/  persisted preferences
│   │   ├── Resources/     Info.plist, AppIcon.icns
│   │   └── scripts/       build, package, release
│   └── website/        landing page (React, Vite, Tailwind, shadcn/ui)
├── brand/              brand guide and asset generator
├── .github/workflows/  CI and release
└── CHANGELOG.md

Adding a media source

Implement MediaProvider (see apps/macos/Sources/OpenNotchi/Media/SpotifyProvider.swift) and add it to MediaManager.providers.

Roadmap

• Multi-display support (Built-in only, Active screen cursor follow, All screens with floating Dynamic Island)
• Signed & notarized releases, Homebrew cask

Releases & versioning

OpenNotchi uses Semantic Versioning; changes are listed in CHANGELOG.md. To cut a release:

1. Add a ## [X.Y.Z] - YYYY-MM-DD section to CHANGELOG.md and commit it.
2. Run make release VERSION=X.Y.Z.

This bumps the version in apps/macos/Resources/Info.plist, tags vX.Y.Z and pushes. Releases are signed for Sparkle auto-update with the EdDSA key stored in the SPARKLE_PRIVATE_KEY repository secret (public key: SUPublicEDKey in Info.plist). GitHub Actions then builds a universal (Apple Silicon + Intel) app and publishes OpenNotchi.dmg / .zip on the release. make dist builds the same files locally into apps/macos/dist/.

Website

The landing page lives in apps/website/ (React, Tailwind, shadcn/ui) and is live at opennotchi.vercel.app.

Brand

Logo, colors and usage rules are in brand/BRAND.md. Run make brand to regenerate every asset.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

OpenNotchi