Approve Claude Code From Your Mac's Notch: 6 Apps

Short answer: yes, you can approve Claude Code from your Mac’s notch. Claude Code’s hooks pass each permission prompt to an app, which shows it in the notch with Allow and Deny and sends your answer back. Six apps do this today: FavTray ($4.99 once, 7-day free trial), NotchPilot (€4.99 once), Crest (Pro, $19.99 once), Vibe Island ($19.99 once), and Vibe Notch and Claude Pulse (both free).

Checked 26 September 2026 from each app’s website, App Store listing or GitHub repository, and the Claude Code hooks docs. FavTray is our app; the others are listed by price.

How does approving Claude Code from the notch work?

Every app here uses the hook system that Claude Code documents:

1. The app adds a hook to your Claude Code settings, usually ~/.claude/settings.json. FavTray uses PermissionRequest, which fires “when a tool call needs a permission decision”; Crest uses PreToolUse, which fires before a tool call executes.
2. Claude Code runs the hook when it wants to run a shell command, edit a file or call an MCP tool. A small script passes the request to the app, usually over a local unix socket.
3. The notch expands with the tool name and what it wants to do. You tap Allow or Deny.
4. The hook returns your decision (allow or deny) to Claude Code, which carries on.

Nothing needs to leave your Mac for this, because the hook, the socket and the app all run locally.

What should you check before trusting one?

An app that can say “yes” on your behalf deserves a minute of checking:

• What happens when you don’t answer? The safe behaviour is to hand the question back to Claude Code’s own terminal prompt. An app should never approve by itself on a timeout.
• Can you see the full request? A command like git push --force or rm -rf should be readable in full before you tap, not truncated.
• Does it merge into your settings, and undo cleanly? It should add its hook without overwriting your other hooks, and remove only its own entries when you turn it off.
• Is it local? Look for a local socket and no account, analytics or cloud relay.
• Remember your own shortcuts. “Always allow” rules and bypass modes approve without asking, in any app and in Claude Code itself.

Which notch apps can approve Claude Code?

App	Price	Approves	Mac without a notch	macOS	Open source
FavTray	$4.99 once (Pro), 7-day free trial	Claude Code (shows Codex sessions)	Glass pill at the top	14+	No
NotchPilot	€4.99 once, 7-day trial	Claude Code (Codex and Cursor announced)	Menu bar pill	Not stated	No
Crest	Free tier; approvals need Pro, $19.99 once, 7-day trial	Claude Code, Codex CLI, Copilot CLI	Pill at the top	14+	No
Vibe Island	$19.99 once (1 Mac, 1 year of updates), 2-day trial	Claude Code plus a long list of other agents	Floating bar	14+	No
Vibe Notch	Free	Claude Code	Not stated	15.6+	Yes (Apache-2.0)
Claude Pulse	Free	Claude Code	Not supported	15+, Apple silicon	Not stated

1. FavTray: approvals inside a notch island you already use

Disclosure: this is our app. FavTray’s Agent Sessions lives in FavShelf, its Dynamic Island for the Mac.

• Approve or deny inline: requests appear on the island’s Agents page, or as a small nudge with Approve and Deny when the island is collapsed. Claude Code’s questions show up with their options, and you can answer them from the notch too.
• It never decides for you: if you don’t answer within 55 seconds, the request goes back to Claude Code’s normal terminal prompt. It never auto-allows or auto-denies on a timeout. If two requests from the same session arrive at once, the first one is shown and the other falls back to the terminal.
• Your own shortcuts: Always Allow (that exact tool and command, for the rest of the session) and Bypass (the whole session) are there when you want them, and they do approve without asking.
• Setup: opt in from Settings → Claude Code. It merges its hooks into ~/.claude/settings.json, saves a backup of the file the first time, and removes only its own entries when you turn it off. Answers travel over a local unix socket.
• The Agents page shows every Claude Code and Codex session with repo, branch, status and elapsed time, and you can chat with a session from the island.
• Beyond the notch: the developer cockpit in the menu bar puts waiting approvals at the top of its “Needs you now” list, next to AI limits and red CI.

Catch: approvals are Claude Code only (no Gemini or Cursor agents). Approvals and the Agents page are part of FavTray Pro, a one-time $4.99 Lifetime license, and every install gets Pro free for 7 days; approvals are never counted or capped. The island’s glance and agent sounds stay free.

2. NotchPilot: the cheapest paid option

NotchPilot costs €4.99 once, with a 7-day trial and no card. It registers three hooks in ~/.claude/settings.json (a notchpilot uninstall command removes them) and talks to Claude Code over a local unix socket, with no analytics.

• Strengths: focused on approving and juggling Claude Code sessions, works with nine terminals including iTerm, Ghostty, Warp, VS Code and Cursor, and becomes a menu bar pill on Macs without a notch.
• Catch: Claude Code today; its site lists Codex and Cursor as “next”.

3. Crest: a full notch app with a coding module

Crest is a general notch app (clipboard shelf, system stats, SSH hosts) whose Pro tier adds AI coding. It uses a PreToolUse hook, and hovering a request unfolds the full command, the file and lines it changes, or the URL.

• Strengths: approves Claude Code, OpenAI Codex CLI and GitHub Copilot CLI; jumps back to the right terminal.
• Catch: the approval module is in Pro, $19.99 once.

4. Vibe Island: the widest agent support

Vibe Island configures Claude Code itself on first launch, then expands the notch with Allow and Deny for file edits, shell commands and MCP calls. Its site lists 30 coding agents in all, including Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor and Copilot.

• Strengths: the most agents in one place; a floating bar on external displays and notchless Macs.
• Catch: $19.99 once for one Mac, with one year of updates, and only a 2-day trial.

5. Vibe Notch: free and open source

Vibe Notch, previously called Claude Island, is free under the Apache-2.0 license. It installs hooks into ~/.claude/hooks/ on first launch and sends session state over a unix socket; when Claude needs permission, the notch expands with approve and deny buttons.

• Strengths: you can read every line of it; minimal and focused.
• Catch: needs macOS 15.6 or later, and its last release was in April 2026.

6. Claude Pulse: free, with batch approvals

Claude Pulse is free with no account. It shows the tool name, an input preview and the last three completed tools; Enter approves, Esc dismisses, and Shift+Enter approves a batch, although commands like rm -rf, DROP TABLE and force-pushes always need a separate confirmation.

• Strengths: thoughtful keyboard control and live usage from your existing Claude login.
• Catch: needs a MacBook with a notch, macOS 15 and Apple silicon.

Also worth a look: AgentBar (free, MIT) answers Claude Code prompts from the menu bar or a Dynamic Island-style panel, with Allow, Always and Deny, and can deny with a note. Notchi (free, GPL-3.0) is a notch companion that reacts to Claude Code and Codex activity rather than a full approval tool.

Do you need a notch app at all?

Not always. Claude Code has its own ways to cut down on prompts:

• /permissions manages allow, ask and deny rules, so safe commands (running tests, git status) stop asking and risky ones always do.
• /hooks shows which hooks are installed, which is also how you check what a notch app added.
• Notifications from your terminal, or a Notification hook, can tell you Claude is waiting without approving anything for you.

A notch app earns its place when you run long sessions in the background, or several at once, and don’t want to keep switching back to a terminal to type “y”. Fewer interruptions also means fewer wasted tokens on stalled sessions; see our guide to reducing Claude Code token usage.

For notch apps in general (media, calendar, file shelf), see our comparison of Dynamic Island apps for Mac, and our guide on how to get a Dynamic Island on Mac.

Sources (checked 26 September 2026): Claude Code hooks, Claude Code commands, NotchPilot, Crest, Vibe Island and its Claude Code page, Vibe Notch, Claude Pulse, AgentBar, Notchi, and the FavTray changelog.