Boring Notch

Say hello to Boring Notch, the coolest way to make your MacBook’s notch the star of the show! Say goodbye to boring status bars: with Boring Notch, your notch transforms into a dynamic music control center, complete with a vibrant visualizer and all the essential music controls you need. But that’s just the start! Boring Notch also offers calendar integration, a handy file shelf with AirDrop support, a complete MacOS HUD replacement and more!

Installation

System Requirements:

• macOS 14 Sonoma or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel Mac

Option 1: Download and Install Manually

Once downloaded, open the .dmg and move Boring Notch to your /Applications folder.

[!IMPORTANT]

We don't have an Apple Developer account (yet 👀), so macOS will warn you that Boring Notch is from an unidentified developer on first launch. This is expected behavior.

> You'll need to bypass this before the app will open. You only need to do this once. Use one of the methods below.

Recommended: Terminal (Always Works)

This is the quickest and easiest method. It only requires a single command and works consistently for all users. System Settings can sometimes fail and won't work for non-admin users.

After moving Boring Notch to your Applications folder, run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/boringNotch.app

Then open the app normally.

Alternative: System Settings

[!NOTE]

This method doesn't work for all users. If this doesn't work, use the Terminal method above.

1. Try to open the app — you'll see a security warning.
2. Click OK to dismiss it.
3. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security.
4. Scroll to the bottom and click Open Anyway next to the Boring Notch warning.
5. Confirm if prompted.

Option 2: Install via Homebrew

You can also install using Homebrew. The Homebrew installation automatically bypasses the macOS security warning described above.

brew install --cask TheBoredTeam/boring-notch/boring-notch

Usage

• Launch the app, and voilà—your notch is now the coolest part of your screen.
• Hover over the notch to see it expand and reveal all its secrets.
• Use the controls to manage your music like a rockstar.
• Click the star in your menu bar to customize your notch to your heart's content.

📋 Roadmap

• [x] Playback live activity 🎧
• [x] Calendar integration 📆
• [x] Reminders integration ☑️
• [x] Mirror 📷
• [x] Charging indicator and current percentage 🔋
• [x] Customizable gesture control 👆🏻
• [x] Shelf functionality with AirDrop 📚
• [x] Notch sizing customization, finetuning on different display sizes 🖥️
• [x] System HUD replacements (volume, brightness, backlight) 🎚️💡⌨️
• [ ] Bluetooth Live Activity (connect/disconnect for bluetooth devices)
• [ ] Weather integration ⛅️
• [ ] Customizable Layout options 🛠️
• [ ] Lock Screen Widgets 🔒
• [ ] Extension system 🧩
• [ ] Notifications (under consideration) 🔔

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• macOS 15.6 or later
• Xcode 26 or later

Installation

1. Clone the Repository:

git clone https://github.com/TheBoredTeam/boring.notch.git
   cd boring.notch

1. Open the Project in Xcode:

open boringNotch.xcodeproj

1. Build and Run:

🤝 Contributing

We’re all about good vibes and awesome contributions! Read CONTRIBUTING.md to learn how you can join the fun!

Join our Discord Server

Star History

Support us on Ko-fi!

🎉 Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to the authors and maintainers of the open-source projects that made this possible.

Notable Projects

• MediaRemoteAdapter – An open-source project that allowed us to use the Now Playing source in macOS 15.4+
• NotchDrop – An open-source project that has been instrumental in developing the first version of the "Shelf" feature in Boring Notch.

Icon credits: @maxtron95

Website credits: @himanshhhhuv

• SwiftUI: For making us look like coding wizards.
• You: For being awesome and checking out boring.notch!