The short answer. Boring Notch turns the notch into a music and file control centre. Atoll makes it a Dynamic Island-style hub for media controls and live activities. ILoveNotch uses it as a tray for media, files, calendar, reminders, notes and timers. NotchNook customises the menu bar to match the notch design. Those four are about the notch as a place for things. Agent Island, CodexIsland, Notchly and HeyMate are about the notch as a place to watch something — code agent sessions, rate limits and spend, agent notifications, and an assistant that runs agents after you approve a plan. Choose which of those you mean, because the two halves of this category want opposite things from the same few millimetres.
This guide covers 8 notch and dynamic island apps for macOS. Every fact below is drawn from the same verified records that back each app’s own page. The recommendations are our editorial judgment, not payment.
Quick comparison
| App | What it is | Pricing | Licence | Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agent Island | notch utility | Open source | not published | — |
| Atoll | notch utility | Open source | GPL-3.0 | 2.3.3 |
| Boring Notch | notch utility | Open source | GPL-3.0 | 2.7.3 |
| CodexIsland | AI coding agent utility | Open source | MIT | 0.3.0 |
| HeyMate | system tool | Open source | MIT | 1.0.18 |
| ILoveNotch | system tool | Open source | MIT | 1.3.0 |
| Notchly | system tool | Open source | MIT | 1.2.2 |
| NotchNook | system tool | not published | not published | — |
What actually decides this
- A place for things or a place to watch something. A tray is opened when you want it and closed when you are done. A live activity stays up because the point is noticing it. Both want the same space and the second one fails if the first takes it.
- What it watches, and how often. Media state, calendar events, agent sessions and build status all poll something. The polling interval is the battery cost, and an app that checks a local service constantly is a different animal from one that watches an API.
- What it can act on. Play, pause, join the meeting, approve a plan and dismiss are five verbs. A companion that can only display is a notification with better placement, and one that can act on something real is a control surface.
- How much it asks for. Screen recording, accessibility, automation and calendar access are the usual grants. An assistant that runs agents needs a great deal more than one that shows you what is playing.
- Whether it gets out of the way. The notch is a few millimetres of permanent screen. The good companions spend that budget sparingly and disappear the moment something else wants the space, which most of them do only if you configure it.
Our picks
- Boring Notch — Its record describes turning the notch into a music and file control center, which is the controls case. Choose it when you want the notch to be a music and file control centre.
- Atoll — Its record describes turning the notch into a Dynamic Island-style hub for media controls, live activities and quick utilities. Choose it when you want a Dynamic Island-style hub with live activities.
- ILoveNotch — Its record describes turning the notch into a tray for exactly those things, which is the tray case. Choose it when you want the notch to hold media, files, calendar, reminders, notes and timers.
- NotchNook — Its record describes customising the menu bar to integrate with the notch design, which is the cosmetics case. Choose it when you want the menu bar to match the notch design.
- Agent Island — Its record describes a notch companion for agent sessions with live status and auto-resume, which is the agent case. Choose it when what you want to watch is your coding agent sessions.
- CodexIsland — Its record describes a live activity for agent CLI rate limits and spend computed locally, which is the spend case. Choose it when the thing to watch is rate limits and spend across agent CLIs.
- Notchly — Its record describes a lightweight Dynamic Island with agent notifications, which is the notification case. Choose it when you want agent notifications in a lightweight island.
- HeyMate — Its record describes an assistant in the notch that answers questions and runs agents after you approve the plan. Choose it when you want an assistant that answers about your screen and runs approved plans.
The apps
Agent Island
Agent Island is a notch utility for macOS. MacBook notch companion for Claude Code and Codex sessions, showing live status and auto-resuming selected long-running tasks. It is open source.
Full profile and verified facts for Agent Island →
Atoll
Atoll is a notch utility for macOS. Turns the notch into a Dynamic Island-style hub for media controls, live activities, and quick utilities. It is released under GPL-3.0.
What it does. Dynamic Island for macOS.
Atoll is listed with current version 2.3.3.
Full profile and verified facts for Atoll →
Boring Notch
Boring Notch is a notch utility for macOS. Turn your MacBook notch into a music and file control center. It is released under GPL-3.0.
What it does. The home of boring.notch — the free app that turns your MacBook.
Boring Notch is listed with current version 2.7.3.
Full profile and verified facts for Boring Notch →
CodexIsland
CodexIsland is an AI coding agent utility for macOS. Turns the MacBook notch into a Dynamic Island-style live activity for Claude Code and Codex CLI rate limits and spend, computed locally with no telemetry. It is released under MIT.
What it does. CodexIsland - AI usage limits in your MacBook notch.
CodexIsland is listed with current version 0.3.0.
Full profile and verified facts for CodexIsland →
HeyMate
HeyMate is a system tool for macOS. AI assistant in the MacBook notch that answers questions about your screen out loud and runs Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode agents after you approve their plan, with media, file shelf, and calendar widgets. It is released under MIT.
HeyMate is listed with current version 1.0.18.
Full profile and verified facts for HeyMate →
ILoveNotch
ILoveNotch is a system tool for macOS. Turns the MacBook notch into a tray for media, files, calendar, reminders, notes, and timers. It is released under MIT.
ILoveNotch is listed with current version 1.3.0.
Full profile and verified facts for ILoveNotch →
Notchly
Notchly is a system tool for macOS. Lightweight Dynamic Island for macOS with AI coding agent notifications. It is released under MIT.
What it does. Notchly is a macOS notch utility for music, gestures, system controls, and AI coding workflows with Codex, Cursor, and Claude AI.
Notchly is listed with current version 1.2.2.
Full profile and verified facts for Notchly →
NotchNook
NotchNook is a system tool for macOS. Customizes your Mac’s menu bar to seamlessly integrate with the notch design. Its pricing is not published.
Full profile and verified facts for NotchNook →
How to choose
- No licence fee, source available. Agent Island, Atoll, Boring Notch, CodexIsland, HeyMate, ILoveNotch and Notchly — the source can be read and, under the terms of each licence, reused.
- Pricing not published in our data. NotchNook — check the developer’s own site before assuming anything about cost.
Open source: Agent Island, Atoll, Boring Notch, CodexIsland, HeyMate, ILoveNotch and Notchly (7 of 8).
Common mistakes
- Installing two companions at once. They fight over the same pixels and neither is obviously the loser.
- Letting a live activity run permanently for information you could check once. The notch is a small budget spent continuously.
- Granting screen recording to something you have not read the source of. It is the most powerful permission on the machine.
- Choosing by the animation. The interesting behaviour is the polling interval and the fallback when the service is down, and neither is on the product page.
How this guide was put together
Each app’s facts come from its own record: the developer’s own pages and repository, the App Store listing where one exists, and the documentation, each with a source grade and an access date. Where a fact rests on the developer’s own statement rather than on something we verified independently, the sentence says so. Where our data has no value for something, the guide says “not published” instead of guessing.
A price appears here only where the record carries one from a stated source; the guide never estimates one, and it records the pricing model alongside so the two can be read together. Prices change and vary by region, so each app links to its own page for the current detail.
The facts and the recommendations are kept apart on purpose. Everything in the app entries, the comparison table and the answers above is composed from the records. The short answer, the criteria and the picks are our editorial judgment: they reflect what we would choose and why, and they are not paid for. Where we make a recommendation we name the condition it applies under, because we do not call anything “the best” without explaining the criteria.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I choose between these notch and dynamic island apps?
There is no single answer — it depends on what you need. This guide covers 8 notch and dynamic island apps: Agent Island, Atoll, Boring Notch, CodexIsland, HeyMate, ILoveNotch, Notchly and NotchNook. They differ mainly in pricing model, licence and the trade-offs each one carries. Pick by the trade-off you care about rather than by rank.
Are these notch and dynamic island apps free?
Pricing across this group: open source (Agent Island, Atoll, Boring Notch, CodexIsland, HeyMate, ILoveNotch and Notchly) and not published (NotchNook). Where we list pricing as not published, the developer does not state a model we could verify — check their own site before assuming anything about cost. We quote a price only where the record carries one from a stated source, and we never estimate one. Prices change and vary by region and by store, so always check the developer’s own page for the current figure.
Which of these notch and dynamic island apps are open source?
Agent Island (not published), Atoll (GPL-3.0), Boring Notch (GPL-3.0), CodexIsland (MIT), HeyMate (MIT), ILoveNotch (MIT) and Notchly (MIT) are open source.
Do these notch and dynamic island apps support Apple Silicon?
Our data does not carry an explicit Apple Silicon statement for any app in this group, so we do not claim one. The absence of a statement is not the same as the absence of support.
How do I choose between them?
Start with how you pay: the guide groups these apps by pricing model, because the budget is the constraint most people actually have. Then check the trade-offs listed for each app: the limitations are the part that decides most people’s choice, because they describe what the app will not do for you.
