A notch for Macs without one: how Notchpals works on any Mac

Notchpals works on Macs that have no notch. On an iMac, a Mac mini, a Mac Studio, an older MacBook or a MacBook with its lid closed, it draws a small black island centered at the top of your main display, and the characters peek out of that, just as they would from a real notch. If your Mac does have a built-in notched screen in use, the characters use the notch instead, even when another display is set as the main one.

That is the whole rule. The rest of this post covers what the island looks like, how Notchpals decides which screen to use when you have more than one, and how to make sure the characters turn up where you will actually see them.

Macs that have no notch

Only recent MacBooks have a notch: the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro from late 2021 onward, and the MacBook Air from the 13-inch M2 model on. Everything else has none. That includes every iMac, the Mac mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro, the 13-inch MacBook Pro (even the M2 model), the M1 MacBook Air, every Intel MacBook and every external display, Apple's included. If you aren't sure about yours, which Macs have a notch lists the models and shows a few ways to check.

What matters more for Notchpals is the version of macOS. It needs macOS 14 or later, which is macOS Sonoma, and it runs on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs. Every Apple silicon Mac can run Sonoma. For Intel Macs, support for Sonoma generally starts with 2018 models, and with 2019 models for the iMac; Apple's compatibility list for macOS Sonoma has the details. To see what your Mac runs now, choose Apple menu > About This Mac and look for the name of the macOS version.

The island: a notch drawn on the screen

The island is a small black shape, like a notch, drawn in the middle of the main display's top edge. On most Macs the middle of the menu bar is empty space between the app menus on the left and the icons on the right, so the island takes a spot that nothing much else uses.

From there it behaves the way the real notch does. When a character has something to say, the island opens, the character slides down, and a speech bubble shows its name, its line and two buttons, Later and Done. The reminder stays up for about 9 seconds, longer if you hover over it. Done gets a thank you. Later, or ignoring it, brings the character back once, 20 minutes later, if the reminder still applies. Hover over the island for a moment and you get a peek, and click a character while it is out to poke it.

Setup happens in the same place. Blip, the alien who looks after your eyes and comes with every copy, walks you through it in the island: say hello, pick your crew, set your bedtime and your lunch and dinner times, answer a sample reminder, and you are done.

Which screen the characters use

Notchpals looks at your setup and picks one screen. The logic is short:

1. If the Mac has a built-in notched screen and it is in use, the characters live in that notch, even if an external display is the main one.
2. Otherwise, they live in an island drawn at the top of the main display.

Here is how that works out for common setups.

In short: a real notch, when one is in use, always wins. Without one, the main display decides.

Choosing your main display

On a Mac without a notch, the main display decides where the island goes. In the arrangement view of System Settings > Displays, it is the one with the white menu bar along its top. To change it, open System Settings > Displays, select the display you look at most, and choose Main Display from the "Use as" menu. Or click Arrange and drag the white menu bar onto that display. The wording differs a little between versions of macOS.

As a rule, make the screen straight in front of you the main one. That puts the menu bar and the island where your eyes already are.

A MacBook and an external display

This is the setup where people are most often surprised. If you work with a notched MacBook open beside a bigger display, the characters appear in the MacBook's notch, not on the big screen, even if the big screen is the main one.

That works well if the laptop is in view. A laptop on a stand beside the display, at a similar height, puts the notch within a glance, and it is good for your neck too. Our guide to MacBook and external display posture setups covers how to arrange the two.

If the laptop sits off to the side where you never look, you have two choices. Move it so the notch is in view, or close the lid and work in clamshell mode with a keyboard and mouse. With the lid closed, there is no notch in use, so the characters move to an island at the top of the main display.

When the island stays shut

An island follows the same rules about when to speak as a real notch, and a couple of them depend on which screen it is on.

• Calls. If any app has the mic or camera on, nobody comes out, so a video call on an iMac is left alone just as it would be on a MacBook.
• Full screen. What matters is a full screen app in front on the display with the island. On a Mac mini with two displays, a film in full screen on the second screen leaves the crew free to visit; the same film on the main display keeps them in. There is more on this in full screen apps and the notch.
• Away. Two minutes with no keyboard or mouse and the crew waits. That time isn't counted as time at the Mac, which matters on a desktop Mac you might walk away from for hours.

To quiet it yourself, the menu bar offers a pause for 1 hour or until tomorrow morning. The menu bar icon is a pair of eyes, shut whenever the crew is holding back, so one glance tells you whether anyone might visit.

Trying it on a Mac without a notch

The easiest way to see how the island looks on your own screen is to try a character. In the Browse window, every character has a "Try in notch" button, so you can see it on your own screen before you decide. There is also a trial with every feature, which starts when you finish setting up your crew.

Each morning before noon, one member of the crew, the host, says good morning the first time you sit down at the Mac. If Blip is your host, that sounds like this:

BlipThe sky got light again! Does it do that every day? Amazing!

It is the same greeting on an iMac as on a MacBook Pro. The notch just happens to be drawn on the screen.