Ways to make the MacBook notch useful instead of ignoring it

The notch on a MacBook is a black cutout at the top of the screen that holds the camera, and you can't switch it off. What you can do is decide what it is for. There are three useful directions: make it blend in so it stops catching your eye, give the space around it a job with an app built for that, or let it become the place gentle reminders come from.

None of these needs much setup, and you can mix them. Here is how each one works, what to watch for, and a couple of things the notch already does for you that are easy to miss.

Start by making it blend in

The notch stands out most against a light menu bar. Make the top of the screen dark and it nearly disappears.

• Switch to Dark appearance. System Settings > Appearance > Dark, or Auto if you want it dark only in the evening.
• Pick a wallpaper that is dark along the top edge. The menu bar takes some of its color from the wallpaper behind it. A black or very dark band at the top makes the strip around the camera look like one solid shape. In System Settings > Wallpaper, the Colors section includes plain black if you want the simplest version.

This doesn't make the notch useful, but it makes everything below work better, because anything that grows out of a black notch looks like part of the hardware. If hiding it is all you want, our guide to hiding the notch has more ways, including what to do about apps that put things behind it.

How apps use the space around the notch

Nothing can be drawn inside the notch. There are no pixels there, only the camera. So apps that "use the notch" draw a black shape attached to its bottom edge, the same color as the cutout. When that shape grows, the notch appears to open up and reveal something, the way the Dynamic Island does on an iPhone. When it shrinks back, the notch looks normal again.

Most of these apps wake up in one of three ways: when you hover the pointer over the notch, when you drag something to it, or when something happens that they want to show you.

Kinds of apps that work with the notch

There are several kinds of notch apps, and they do quite different jobs. Some of the common ones:

• File shelves. Drag a file to the notch and it holds the file in a tray that drops down from the camera. Later you drag it out into an email, a folder or another app. Useful if you move files between windows a lot and keep losing them on the desktop.
• Now playing panels. Hover over the notch to see what's playing, with the artwork and play and pause buttons, without opening the music app.
• Status displays. Battery level, charging, volume and brightness changes shown in a strip around the notch instead of in macOS's usual on-screen indicator.
• Calendar and timer panels. The time of your next meeting, a countdown or a running timer, visible when you glance up.
• Clipboard and quick notes trays. A history of what you copied, or a scratchpad, that opens from the top of the screen.
• Menu bar organizers. These tuck the icons you rarely use into a collapsible group, which helps when the notch has squeezed some of them out. If that is your problem, menu bar icons hidden behind the notch covers the built-in fixes first.

You probably want one of these at most, or two that do clearly different things. Two apps that both expand the notch end up competing for the same spot.

What to check before you install a notch app

Any app that draws over the top of your screen and reacts to the pointer is working close to everything you do, so a few minutes of checking is time well spent.

1. Read the permissions it asks for. Some features genuinely need Accessibility access, or Screen Recording to show certain content. If an app asks for one of those and you can't see why it needs it, don't grant it. You can review and remove access later in System Settings > Privacy & Security.
2. See what it does in full screen. A notch app that keeps popping up over a full screen video or presentation will annoy you fast. A good one stays out of the way.
3. Try it with your setup. If you use an external display, or work with the lid closed, check what the app does when there is no notch to attach to.
4. Watch its energy use for a day. Open Activity Monitor and look at the Energy tab. An app that is always animating at the top of the screen can drain the battery.
5. Get it from a developer you can identify. macOS warns you when an app comes from an unidentified developer. Take that warning seriously for something that sits on top of your screen all day.

Use what the notch already does

Even with no extra software, the notch area does a little work.

• The camera light. On a MacBook, a green light next to the camera comes on whenever the camera is in use. A glance at the notch tells you whether you are on camera, which is handy at the start of a call or when an app has been granted camera access you forgot about.
• The recording indicator. In recent versions of macOS, a colored dot appears in the menu bar when an app is using the microphone, and Control Center shows which app it is.
• A target for your eyes. It sounds silly, but a fixed black shape at the top of the screen is a decent reminder to look up and away. Each time you notice it, look across the room for a few seconds.

That last one only works if you notice it, which, after a week, you won't. That is where the next idea comes in.

Let it bring you reminders

The notch sits at the top center of your screen, where your eyes pass all day, and unless you have handed it to another app, nothing else uses it. That makes it a good spot for a reminder that is easy to see and easy to ignore politely.

This is the idea behind Notchpals. Characters peek out of the notch to remind you to drink water, eat, sit up, move, rest your eyes, get to bed, focus and look after your Mac, among other things. Each one looks after one area, and you pick a crew of them, one per area.

A visit works like the notch apps above. The notch grows, the character comes down into view, and a speech bubble appears with its name, its line and two buttons: Later and Done. It stays up for about 9 seconds, or longer if you hover over it. Press Done and it thanks you. Press Later, or just ignore it, and it returns a single time, 20 minutes later, if the reminder still applies; a second Later lets it go. Blip, the alien who looks after your eyes, does blink breaks this way:

BlipSlow blink time! Close... open. Close... open. Like a tiny sunrise!

What makes it bearable over months is how rarely it speaks. Timed moments like lunch or bedtime turn up no more than once a day, and only in their own window. Repeating ones like water and eye breaks draw on a single daily allowance for the whole crew (4, 8 or 12, depending on whether you choose Calm, Normal or Chatty), and unprompted visits are at least 20 minutes apart.

It also holds up against the checklist above. It keeps out of full screen apps on the notch's display, and it stays hidden while the microphone or camera is on, so no character drops in on a call. With the lid closed, or on a Mac with no notch at all, it draws its own black island at the top of the main display rather than giving up. Everything Notchpals can remind you about is a tour of every area.

Between visits, the notch goes back to being a black cutout. Hover over it for a moment and you get a peek.