Your notch,
finally alive.
An island for the Mac notch. Hover the camera and black glass blooms open: now playing, weather and your Claude or Codex usage, free on every install. Pro adds a day calendar with Join, clipboard history, a file shelf with AirDrop, a camera check, and Claude Code approvals right under the camera.
Live recreation, not a video: the bloom, the free glance, and a Claude Code approval card.
The island is one surface — the rest of FavTray lives in the menu bar popover, or pops out full-screen with Board.
Watch it in action
FavShelf: music, weather and tools in the notch. Music, weather, your day on a ruler and quick tools, in the notch. Pro.
More videos →The notch talks back
Limits, asks, and cheers — one card shape for all of them, and for the cheers the island becomes the thing: water, sea, candlelight, weather. Click any moment to play it. Reduce Motion turns each into a plain one-line card.
Six surfaces, one piece of glass
The Notch Becomes a Surface
Hover the camera housing and a black-glass island blooms open — media, calendar, clipboard, files, weather, and quick actions, exactly where your eyes already are.
Media, Properly
Now playing for Spotify and Apple Music: play/pause, skip and seek, with artwork from Spotify. Other apps get play/pause and skip through the media keys.
TimeLens Calendar
A day ruler for today: the hours around now, with Yesterday and Tomorrow a click away. Click any meeting for details, attendees and one-click Join. A Calendar/Team switch flips to team clocks: each one's time, day, offset and working hours.
Claude Code in the Notch
Approve or deny Claude Code's permission requests, answer its questions and see when a session finishes, on a card under the camera. No answer within 55 seconds and Claude Code asks in the terminal as usual. Pro.
Moments, not popups
FavTray's own alerts become one card under the camera. Claude at 95 % is a line and a bar. Time for water is an orange ask with two buttons. Your water goal floods the island; a stand-up makes a shrimp hop; a streak lights candles; rain in your city falls as rain.
Camera Self-Check
A mirrored preview in the island before you join a call. Every camera — built-in, external, iPhone Continuity — and nothing is ever recorded.
Built for these moments
Meeting-heavy days
The collapsed island turns into a Join pill when a meeting with a link is 10 minutes away, a heads-up card lands about a minute before, and the Time tab has the link, attendees and notes.
Read more →iPhone envy
FavShelf is inspired by the iPhone's Dynamic Island. Macs with a notch do nothing with that space; FavShelf puts it to work.
Read more →Music while you work
Skip, seek and check what's playing in Spotify or Apple Music without switching windows.
Read more →Running coding agents
Claude Code needs a yes while you're in another app. Approve it, or answer its question, from the card under the camera instead of hunting for the terminal.
Read more →Questions
Which plan unlocks the full notch island?
Any paid FavTray plan (see favtray.com/pricing). It unlocks the Time, Clipboard, Files and Agents tabs, the camera check, island notifications and Claude Code approvals. The Clipboard tab shows the history of the Clipboard tool, which itself works on Free. Every install gets all of it free for 7 days.
Can I try the island for free?
Yes. Every FavTray install — free included — shows the island glance: now-playing media with transport controls, live weather for your saved places, and Claude/Codex usage bars, right under the notch. The tools inside (the Clipboard tab, the file shelf, the camera check, the Time calendar and the Agents page) unlock with FavTray Pro.
Does it need a notch?
No. On a Mac without a notch the island is a small glass pill at the top of the main display, with the same features. FavTray shows one island: on the built-in display when it has a notch, otherwise on the main display.
Does it drain the battery like other notch apps?
No. FavTray's island follows strict performance rules: no perpetual animations, event-driven updates only, and ambient scenes capped at 12fps that exist only while the island is open. When it's closed it does almost nothing: a once-a-minute redraw and event callbacks.
Can I approve Claude Code from the island?
Yes, with FavTray Pro. Turn it on in Settings → Claude Code: FavTray adds its hooks to ~/.claude/settings.json next to yours and removes only its own when you turn it off. Requests show under the notch with Approve and Deny, and questions with their options. If you don't answer within 55 seconds, Claude Code asks in the terminal as usual; FavTray never approves or denies on its own. Codex sessions are shown but can't be approved.
Does the island show notifications from my other apps?
No. It shows FavTray's own alerts on Pro: Claude Code requests, AI limits, CI results on your pull requests, busy ports, meetings, and water and stand-up reminders. macOS has no public way for an app to read other apps' notifications, and FavShelf doesn't scrape them.
Does it work with Spotify?
Yes: artwork, play/pause, skip and seek for Spotify, and the same controls without artwork for Apple Music. Other apps, browsers included, get play/pause and skip through the media keys but no track info: since macOS 15.4, apps can't read what's playing system-wide.
Which macOS versions are supported?
macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later. FavTray is a universal app, tested on Apple Silicon with macOS 26. On macOS 26 (Tahoe) the island adopts Liquid Glass materials on Macs without a notch.
Is the island private?
Yes. The Clipboard tab shows the Clipboard tool's history, which is opt-in and stored encrypted on your Mac, never synced or uploaded. Shelf files stay where they are on disk, and calendar data is read from your Mac. The island's own network calls are weather for your saved places and Spotify artwork; Claude Code approvals travel over a local socket.
More: Best Mac notch apps · How to get a notch island · Approve Claude Code from the notch · Agent Sessions · vs Boring Notch · vs Notchy · Claude Code notifications on Mac · vs Alcove
Pay once. Own the island forever.
The Lifetime license removes every Free limit and unlocks the full notch island — $4.99, once.