By the NotchPop team · Updated
Short answer
macOS doesn't include a Dynamic Island. Apple only ships it on iPhone. You can add one to your Mac with a notch app like NotchPop, which turns the camera notch, or the top of the screen on Macs without a notch, into an expandable island for music, files, timers and more.
Does the Mac have a Dynamic Island?
No. The Dynamic Island is an iPhone feature, first shipped on iPhone 14 Pro in 2022. MacBooks with a notch have the same black cutout at the top of the screen, but macOS only uses it to hide the camera. The menu bar simply flows around it.
Third-party notch apps fill that gap. They draw a black panel that matches the notch exactly, so it looks like part of the hardware, then expand it into controls when you hover or click.
Set it up in three steps
- Download NotchPop and drag it to your Applications folder. It's signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens without warnings.
- Open it. The island appears around your notch right away. On a Mac without a notch, it floats at the top center of the screen.
- Hover over the notch to peek, click to open, and pin the tools you want in Settings. Turn on extras, like clipboard history or calendar, only if you want them.
Every feature is free for 7 days. After that it's $3.99 once, with no subscription.
What a Mac Dynamic Island can do
On iPhone, the Dynamic Island mostly shows live activities. On a Mac there's more room, so a notch app can hold real tools:
- [Music](/features/media-island): album art in the resting notch, plus play, pause, skip, volume and speaker switching.
- [Files](/features/drop-shelf): drag files onto the notch to park them, AirDrop them, or convert images.
- [Clipboard](/features/clipboard): searchable history of what you copied, off until you turn it on.
- [Focus](/features/focus-timer): a Pomodoro timer with a live countdown in the collapsed notch.
- [Calendar](/features/calendar): today's agenda and one-click Zoom, Meet and Teams joins.
- [Messages](/features/message-replies): reply to iMessage and WhatsApp without switching apps.
Does it slow down my Mac?
A well-built notch app shouldn't. NotchPop is a native Swift and SwiftUI app, not a web wrapper, and it only turns on the features you use. Features that need a macOS permission, such as Calendar or Accessibility, ask for it only when you switch them on.
Other ways to get one
NotchPop isn't the only option. The Boring Notch and Atoll are free and open source, Alcove focuses on the iPhone look, and NotchNook is the original. We compare 14 of them in the best Mac notch apps and in a full feature matrix.
