How to Use Your MacBook's Notch for Productivity
When Apple introduced the notch on the MacBook Pro in 2021, the reaction was mostly negative. A black cutout eating into your screen real estate, housing a camera you use once a week on Zoom calls. Five years later, a small ecosystem of macOS apps has turned that dead space into something genuinely useful.
Here's a look at the best MacBook notch apps in 2026 and what each one does.
The notch app landscape
Most notch apps fall into three categories: media controls, system utilities, and cosmetic fixes. A few go beyond these into actual productivity. Here's what's out there.
TopNotch — hide the notch entirely
The simplest approach. TopNotch makes your menu bar background black, which visually hides the notch by blending it into the surrounding area. No added functionality — just cosmetics.
Price: Free.
Best for: People who hate the notch and want it gone. Doesn't add any features, just removes the visual annoyance.
Boring Notch — open-source media controls
Boring Notch is a free, open-source app that turns the notch into a Dynamic Island-style area. It shows music controls with an audio visualizer, calendar events, battery status, and custom volume/brightness HUDs. It also has a "shelf" feature for drag-and-drop file sharing.
Price: Free (open-source).
Best for: Users who want media controls and system indicators without paying anything. The open-source nature means community contributions and transparency.
NotchNook — the feature-rich powerhouse
NotchNook is the most full-featured notch app on the market. It adds widgets, system indicators (CPU, RAM, network), ambient information, brightness and volume controls, and a folder management feature for quick file access. It's highly customizable and regularly updated.
Price: $25 one-time or $3/month. Also available on Setapp.
Best for: Power users who want to pack as much functionality into the notch as possible. If you want Dynamic Island on Mac with widgets and system monitoring, this is it.
MediaMate — clean media controls
MediaMate focuses on one thing: providing clean, responsive media controls around the notch. Volume changes, brightness adjustments, and now-playing info — all displayed with a polished UI. It works on all Mac models, not just MacBooks with a notch.
Price: Less than NotchNook (varies).
Best for: Users who want beautiful media feedback without the complexity of a full widget system.
Notchmeister — just for fun
Notchmeister adds decorative effects to the notch area — Glow, Plasma, Nano Radar, festive themes. It's purely cosmetic and doesn't add any functionality.
Price: Free.
Best for: Fun. Making the notch look cool on a video call.
What's missing: text productivity
Look at the list above and you'll notice a pattern. Every MacBook notch app focuses on media controls, system indicators, or aesthetics. None of them help you with the thing you probably do most on your Mac: working with text.
You're not reaching for the notch to check your CPU usage. You're reaching for it because you need to jot something down, find something you copied, or grab a snippet you use every day. That's the gap NotchPad fills.
NotchPad — text productivity in the notch
NotchPad opens from your MacBook's notch — notes, clipboard, and snippets in one panel.
NotchPad turns the notch area into three tools:
- A notepad with rich text — bold, italic, lists. Pin important notes to the top, search across all your notes. Hover over the notch and start typing.
- Clipboard history that saves everything you copy, automatically. Search, pin, and merge clipboard items. Passwords from 1Password, Bitwarden, and Apple Passwords are automatically encrypted with AES-256-GCM.
- Reusable snippets for code, email templates, canned responses, and any text you paste frequently. One tap to copy.
On MacBooks with a notch, you hover to open. On any other Mac (iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Studio, older MacBooks), you press ⌃⌃ (double-tap Control). Same app, same features, every Mac running macOS 15 Sequoia.
Price: $9.99 one-time after a 15-day free trial. See pricing.
Best for: Anyone who wants a quick notepad, clipboard manager, and snippet tool — all in one place, with encryption for sensitive data.
Can you use multiple notch apps?
Technically yes, but most notch apps compete for the same screen area, so running two notch apps simultaneously can cause conflicts. In practice, most people pick one that matches their primary use case:
- Media-focused workflow: NotchNook or Boring Notch
- Text-focused workflow: NotchPad
- Just hide it: TopNotch
If you're a developer, writer, or anyone who works primarily with text, NotchPad is the notch app that actually matches your workflow. Notes, clipboard, snippets — encrypted and always one hover away.
Check the release notes to see what's new, or reach out if you have questions.
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Download NotchPad — Free 15-Day Trial
$9.99 one-time purchase. No subscription. Works on any Mac. See pricing.