Notch Island on Mac: Get One Free in 2 Minutes

Short answer: macOS doesn’t do anything with the notch yet. To get an island on a Mac, install a notch app, launch it and hover your pointer over the notch. Boring Notch, Notchy and FavTray’s FavShelf glance are free; NotchNook is paid, and went offline in September 2026 before relaunching at a new site. It takes about two minutes, and works on Macs without a notch too.

TL;DR: get a notch island on Mac in 3 steps

1. Pick a notch app: FavShelf (free glance), Boring Notch or Notchy (free), or NotchNook (paid; check its status first).
2. Install and open it, and grant the permissions it asks for.
3. Hover the notch. The island expands; on a Mac without a notch it’s a floating bar at the top of the screen.

The iPhone has the Dynamic Island; no Mac does. Apple put a notch on the MacBook in 2021 and still doesn’t use it for anything interactive. Even macOS 27 only added a » button for the menu bar icons the notch hides. A notch app fills the gap by drawing an expandable panel around the camera housing. This guide walks through the exact steps with FavShelf, then covers Notchy and Boring Notch, and NotchNook’s status. If you only care about the $0 options, the free alternatives are compared on their own page.

Disclosure: FavShelf is our app; free alternatives are covered below.

What does a notch island on Mac actually do?

Same interaction pattern as the iPhone: the black area around the camera sits quietly until something is worth showing, then blooms open when you hover it. Depending on the app, that panel holds media controls with album artwork, a calendar, a file shelf, weather, clipboard history, or volume and brightness HUDs.

One honest limit up front: no app can render under the physical notch, because that’s where the camera is. What these apps do is make the space around it interactive. Most of them also work on Macs without a notch, drawing a floating black-glass bar at the top of the screen instead. (Curious what’s actually inside the cutout? Here’s what the MacBook notch is for.)

Does a Mac have an island like the iPhone?

No. No Mac has one built in, and macOS 27 only added a » button for menu bar icons the notch hides.

Reportedly, Apple is adding one, but not to the notch you have now. Bloomberg reported on 24 February 2026 that Apple’s first touch-screen, OLED MacBook Pro will put an island around a hole-punch camera, and MacRumors reported on 14 September 2026 that those models are being tested with macOS 27.1. Nothing Apple has announced adds one to existing notched MacBooks, so a notch app is still the only way. More detail in what the MacBook notch is for.

How to get a notch island on Mac with FavShelf

FavShelf is part of FavTray, a menu bar app for macOS 14 (Sonoma) and later. It’s a universal app, tested on Apple Silicon with macOS 26. The island glance is free on every install.

Step 1: Download FavTray

Go to favtray.com/download, enter your email, and type in the 6-digit code it sends you. The download starts once the code checks out; the app itself needs no account. Open the DMG and drag FavTray to your Applications folder, like any Mac app.

Step 2: First launch

FavTray has been signed with an Apple Developer ID since version 1.12.0, so there is nothing to work around:

1. Open your Applications folder.
2. Double-click FavTray.
3. macOS asks once whether you want to open an app downloaded from the Internet. Click Open.

Every launch afterward opens without a prompt. If you get stuck, the getting started guide covers this in more detail.

Step 3: Check the island is on

The island is on by default and stays out of sight until you point at the notch (“Hide until hover”). To change either, click the FavTray menu bar icon, choose Open FavTray, pick FavShelf in the sidebar, and use Show the island and Hide until hover. (The menu bar popover is FavTray’s developer cockpit; it has no FavShelf switch.)

On a Mac without a notch, a small glass pill appears at the top of the main display instead.

Step 4: Hover the notch

Move your pointer over the notch and the island expands. Out of the box, the free glance shows:

• Now playing: play/pause, skip and seek for Spotify and Apple Music, with artwork for Spotify.
• Live weather for your saved places.
• AI usage bars: Claude and Codex quota at a glance, if you use those tools.
• Volume and power HUDs: a volume slider and charging status in the island, shown alongside macOS’s own volume indicator.

Total time from download to working island: about two minutes, most of it spent on the email code and the drag to Applications.

What you get free vs paid

The island glance above is free on every install, with no time limit. Every new install also gets a 7-day trial of everything, no card needed.

The full island toolkit comes with FavTray’s one-time Lifetime licence (see pricing):

• Clipboard history in the island.
• File shelf with AirDrop: drop files onto the notch, fling them out later.
• TimeLens: a day ruler with the hours around now and one-click meeting joins.
• Camera self-check, including iPhone Continuity Camera, so you never join a call with a bad angle.
• Agents tab: approve or deny Claude Code and answer its questions from the notch.
• Island notifications: FavTray’s own alerts as cards in the notch: Claude Code requests, AI limits, CI results on your pull requests, busy ports and meeting heads-ups.

The same license unlocks the rest of FavTray’s Pro tools, so weigh the one-time price against the whole toolset rather than a single widget. For a feature-by-feature comparison of every serious notch app, including Atoll, Alcove, DynamicLake and Sapphire, see the full Mac notch app comparison.

How to set up Notchy (free)

Notchy is free and donation-supported, runs on macOS 13 Ventura and later, and opens without a Gatekeeper warning (we checked version 1.0.179 on 26 September 2026). It isn’t open source. It packs a lot into the notch: now playing with synced lyrics, a file shelf, clipboard history, a calendar, weather, HUDs, and AI usage limits.

1. Download it from notchy.dev, or run brew install --cask vishvavariya/notchy/notchy.
2. Open it from Applications and grant the permissions it asks for.
3. Hover the notch to expand the island, then pick your widgets in its settings.

We compared it with FavShelf feature by feature in FavTray vs Notchy.

How to get a free notch island with Boring Notch

Boring Notch is the community option: free, open source (GPL-3.0), and actively developed. Its README lists media controls with a visualizer, calendar and Reminders integration, a file shelf with AirDrop, a camera mirror, and replacements for the volume and brightness HUDs. macOS can’t verify it, so first launch needs one extra step:

1. Download the DMG from the Boring Notch GitHub releases page and move the app to Applications.
2. Try to open it once, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. Only do this for a copy you downloaded from the official GitHub releases page.
3. Launch it, grant the permissions it asks for, and hover the notch.

The trade-offs: no weather yet (it’s on the project’s roadmap), no AI usage, and some rough edges on multi-display setups. But the price is unbeatable, and you can read the code.

What about NotchNook?

NotchNook popularized the category. In September 2026 it went offline during an ownership dispute at its developer, lo.cafe, and Homebrew has since disabled its cask. On 7 October getnotchnook.com said it was back on sale, but we couldn’t confirm who runs the new site or whether licences bought before September still work. Full status: FavTray vs NotchNook.

The island isn’t showing — how do I fix it?

The failure modes are the same across every notch app, so run through these in order:

1. Confirm the app is actually running. Notch apps are menu bar apps, so look for their icon in the menu bar. If it’s not there, launch the app from Applications again.
2. Check the island toggle. Most apps ship with the island on, but if you turned it off while exploring settings, nothing will render. In FavTray that’s the Show the island switch on the FavShelf screen of the FavTray window; if Hide until hover is on, the island stays invisible until you point at the notch.
3. Hover the right spot. The trigger zone is the notch itself (or the floating bar on notchless displays), not the whole menu bar. Move the pointer directly over the camera housing and pause for a beat.
4. Grant permissions. Media controls, calendar, and camera features each need their own macOS permission. If a specific panel is blank (say, now playing shows nothing while music is clearly playing), open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, and check what the app has been granted. Our guide to notch app permissions for Spotify and Apple Music walks through each one.
5. “App is damaged” or “unidentified developer” on launch. That’s Gatekeeper refusing an app it can’t verify. FavTray has been signed since 1.12.0, so you won’t see it with a current download. For Boring Notch, use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway once, as in its setup steps, and only for a copy from its official site. On macOS 15 and later, right-click → Open no longer skips the check.

If the island renders but a single feature misbehaves, check the app’s own settings before assuming a bug: most of these panels can be toggled one by one.

Will a notch app drain my MacBook battery?

A fair question, because some notch apps have. Anything that runs perpetual animations or polls constantly adds measurable CPU load, and that shows up on battery life over a workday.

The test is simple: install the app, use your Mac normally for an hour, then open Activity Monitor and check the CPU and Energy tabs. A well-built notch app should idle near 0% when the island is closed. FavShelf follows strict rules here (no perpetual animations, everything event-driven), and we measured the whole FavTray app at 0.3–0.5% idle CPU with every tool switched on (FavTray 1.11.0 on an M5 Max, September 2026). Whatever app you choose, run that Activity Monitor check before committing; it takes thirty seconds and tells you more than any marketing page.

Which notch app should you install?

• Fastest free start: Notchy or Boring Notch, or FavShelf’s free glance if you’d rather have the island in the same app as your menu bar tools.
• Polished HUDs and live activities, one payment: Alcove ($14.99 once, macOS 15+; tryalcove.com).
• The notch as a full control surface (calendar, clipboard, file shelf, camera check, island notifications, Claude Code approvals): FavShelf with FavTray Pro.

Whichever you pick, the shape of the answer is the same: macOS won’t give you a notch island, but a two-minute install will. Start with the download and hover the notch.

Sources (checked 7 October 2026): MacMagazine on NotchNook, Homebrew’s notchnook cask, getnotchnook.com, Alcove.