What Boring Notch does with the MacBook notch, and what it leaves to other apps
The notch on a MacBook is dead space. It holds a camera, it interrupts the menu bar, and on a 14 inch screen it takes the middle out of the one strip that is never covered by a window. Boring Notch is the best known attempt to make that area do something useful, and the questions people arrive with are usually the same three: what it actually puts there, whether it is safe to install, and whether it fixes the crowded menu bar that made the notch annoying in the first place.
The short version: it is a free, open source app that turns the notch into an expanding panel for media, calendar, files and system controls. It does not manage menu bar icons, which is a separate problem with separate tools. Both halves are worth spelling out before installing anything.
What Boring Notch is
Boring Notch is developed by a group that publishes as TheBoredTeam, with the project home at theboring.name and the source at github.com. The marketing site describes it as 100% free and open source, and the footer names the licence as GPLv3, which the repository metadata confirms.
Behaviour is hover based. The notch sits as a thin strip until the pointer reaches it, then expands downward into a panel wide enough for controls and artwork. Moving the pointer away collapses it again. The design intent is the Dynamic Island idea from iPhone, applied to a laptop lid where the camera housing already interrupts the screen.
Two signals are worth checking for anyone weighing up an open source utility, because both are public. The repository carries a little over ten thousand eight hundred stars and had commits on the day this article was written, which puts it in the small group of Mac utilities that are actively maintained rather than parked. Translation is handled through a public Crowdin project, which is a reasonable proxy for a codebase that expects users outside one language.
What it puts in the notch
The feature list is broader than the music player the app is usually described as.
Media. Playback controls with album artwork and a visualiser, reading from whatever app is currently playing. On recent macOS versions this depends on a separate open source component that exposes the Now Playing information, credited in the project's acknowledgements.
Calendar and reminders. Upcoming appointments and reminder items surface in the expanded panel, so checking the next meeting does not require switching apps.
A file shelf with AirDrop. Files dragged into the notch are parked there, then dragged out somewhere else or sent onward. It works as a temporary pocket between two Finder windows or two apps.
A camera mirror. A small preview for the front camera, which is a genuinely good use of the space directly around the lens: a video call check without opening an app.
Battery and charging. Charge level and percentage, with a charging indicator.
System HUD replacement. The volume, brightness and keyboard backlight overlays that macOS draws in the middle of the screen are replaced with sliders that appear at the notch instead.
Gestures and sizing. Gesture control is configurable, and the notch area can be resized to suit different displays.
The published roadmap also shows what is not built yet, which is unusual and useful. Bluetooth activity, weather, customisable layout options, lock screen widgets and an extension system are listed as not yet done, and notifications are marked as under consideration. Anyone choosing the app for one of those reasons should treat them as intentions rather than features.
What free and open source means in practice here
There is no purchase and no subscription. The project asks for optional support through GitHub sponsorship or Ko-fi, and everything is available without paying.
The trade offs that come with that model are worth naming, because they are not hidden and they do affect daily use.
| Aspect | How it stands |
|---|---|
| Price | No charge, GPLv3 licence |
| Source code | Public, contributions accepted |
| Apple notarisation | Not signed, so macOS warns on first launch |
| Support | Community issues and a Discord server |
| Release cadence | Volunteer driven, currently active |
None of these is a flaw. They are the normal shape of a volunteer project, and the same model produces some of the best software on the platform. They matter only when a particular expectation depends on the other model: a signed installer that opens without a warning, a support address with a response time, or a guarantee that a feature will exist by a given date.
The permissions those features imply
macOS gates each of these capabilities behind its own permission, so the feature list predicts what will be asked for on first run. Reading calendar events requires Calendar access. The camera mirror requires Camera access. Surfacing reminders requires access to Reminders. Replacing the volume and brightness overlays means the app has to notice those keys being pressed.
That is worth knowing in advance for two reasons. On a work Mac, some of these prompts may be blocked by policy, in which case the corresponding panel will stay empty and nothing is broken. And any utility that asks for calendar and camera access deserves a look at where the code comes from, which is the practical benefit of a public repository: the permission requests can be traced to the features that need them rather than taken on trust.
Declining a prompt is not fatal either. Each feature fails on its own, so refusing camera access leaves everything except the mirror working.
Requirements, and the warning on first launch
The stated requirements are short.
macOS 14 Sonoma or later. Apple Silicon or Intel Mac. Source: github.com, read September 23, 2026
The part that surprises people is the first launch. The project does not have an Apple Developer account, so the app is not signed and notarised, and macOS treats it as coming from an unidentified developer. This is documented in the project's own installation notes rather than being something to discover the hard way.
There are two ways through it. The supported route is to open the app, then go to System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom and use Open Anyway next to the warning about the app. The alternative is the project's Homebrew cask, which the installation notes say bypasses that warning automatically, since Homebrew handles the quarantine attribute as part of installing.
Either route is a one time step. Worth knowing before installing: this is also the difference a reader will notice most if they compare it with a paid utility from a registered developer, where the app opens on the first double click with no dialogue at all.
On a Mac without a notch
This question comes up constantly, and the project answers it directly.
Boring Notch works best on MacBooks with a notch (2021 and newer MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models). However, it also supports non-notch Macs with a simulated notch experience! Source: boringnotch.com, read September 23, 2026
There is a second case hiding inside that answer: a notched MacBook connected to an external display. The physical notch exists on the laptop screen only, so on the external monitor the app is in simulated mode while the built in screen uses the real notch. Anyone who works mostly on a large second display should expect the simulated version to be what they see all day.
On an iMac, a Mac mini with an external display, or an older MacBook, the app draws its own notch shaped panel at the top of the screen. That is a reasonable answer for anyone who wants the controls, and a bad one for anyone whose whole motivation was to reclaim dead space, because a simulated notch adds an element rather than reusing one.
The problem it does not solve
Here is the part that most reviews skip. Boring Notch works on the notch and the area immediately around it. It does not organise the status icons in the menu bar.
Those are different problems that happen to live a few pixels apart.
| Problem | What it looks like | What addresses it |
|---|---|---|
| The notch is wasted space | A black bar with nothing in it | A notch app such as this one |
| The menu bar has too many icons | Fifteen icons in no order, overflow cut off by the notch | A menu bar manager |
The second problem gets worse as software is installed, because nearly every background utility adds an icon and nothing removes one. Past a certain count the icons nearest the middle are simply not drawn, since the notch occupies the space where they would go, and no amount of dragging brings them back. macOS also stores the order of status items inside each app's own settings, which is why reordering them by hand rarely holds and why a change only takes effect the next time that app starts.
A menu bar manager for macOS is the category built for that: a divider that splits the strip into shown and hidden zones, a way to reveal the hidden items on a click, a gesture or a keystroke, and rules for bringing a specific icon out when something happens, such as the battery dropping below a level. Named layouts and per display storage matter for laptops in particular, since docking and undocking changes how many icons fit. A side by side look at the options, the free ones included, is on the comparison page.
Running a notch app and a menu bar manager together
Two utilities that both reposition status items will fight over the same slots, which is why running two menu bar managers at once is a bad idea and is called out as such in the FAQ. A notch app is a different case: it draws its own panel and does not claim the positions of other apps' status items, so the combination is the normal one rather than the exception.
What does need thought is the space itself. A notch app that expands on hover occupies the area just under the notch, and status icons sit to the left and right of it. If the menu bar is crowded enough that icons run up against the notch on both sides, the hover target for the notch app becomes fiddly. Thinning out the visible icons first makes both tools behave better, which is an argument for doing the menu bar work before adding anything that lives in the notch.
Two notch apps at once, on the other hand, is the combination to avoid. Both will try to own the same region of the screen, and the result is flicker rather than a useful merge of features.
What to change first
Install Boring Notch if the appeal is media controls, a file shelf and a camera mirror in space that is currently doing nothing, and accept the one time Open Anyway step or use the Homebrew cask. If the real irritation is that fifteen status icons no longer fit beside the notch, that is a different tool: Koffret covers the menu bar side and runs for fourteen days without a card.
Frequently asked questions
Is Boring Notch free, and is there a paid version?
It is free and open source under the GPLv3 licence, with no paid tier on the project's own pages. Support is optional through GitHub sponsorship or Ko-fi.
Why does macOS say Boring Notch is from an unidentified developer?
The project does not have an Apple Developer account, so the app is not signed and notarised. Open it once, then use Open Anyway at the bottom of System Settings > Privacy & Security, or install it through the project's Homebrew cask, which handles this automatically.
Does Boring Notch work on a Mac that has no notch?
Yes, with a simulated notch drawn at the top of the screen. The project states it works best on MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models from 2021 onward, which are the ones with a physical notch.
Will Boring Notch hide or tidy my menu bar icons?
No. It works on the notch and the panel that expands from it. Hiding, ordering and revealing status icons is what a menu bar manager does, and the two types of app cover different parts of the same strip.
Which macOS version does it need?
macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple silicon or Intel. Building it from source has a higher requirement than running it, which only matters for anyone compiling it themselves.
Can I run it alongside another notch app?
That is the one combination worth avoiding. Two apps drawing in the same region of the screen compete for it, and the result is visual flicker rather than both feature sets working. Pick one notch app and keep it.