Notchware: Agent Alerts in the Notch for $3.99
ProductivityFreemiumNotchware turns the MacBook notch into a live island for Now Playing, battery, volume, brightness, Focus and network status. Pro adds approval and completion alerts for Codex, Claude Code and Cursor as a one-time $3.99 purchase, with no account, analytics or cloud.
About Notchware
Notchware is a small native macOS app that turns the dead space around the MacBook notch into a status island, and its pitch is deliberately unglamorous. The free version is useful on its own, and the paid part is a one-time $3.99 rather than a subscription. For free you get Now Playing with album artwork, a live equaliser and playback controls for Spotify, Apple Music and other sources, plus indicators for battery with a threshold you choose, volume, brightness, Focus mode changes and network status including Wi-Fi and Personal Hotspot. Those are the things you glance at constantly, which is the argument for putting them there. Each indicator can be switched off individually, the island width is adjustable, and Notchware hides itself while an app is fullscreen. Pro adds the part relevant to AI work: alerts from Codex, Claude Code and Cursor in the notch when an agent needs approval or has finished a task, with optional sounds. It also adds Lock Screen music controls and an option to hide your Lock Screen profile photo and name while expanded artwork is showing. How those AI alerts work is the detail worth checking. Installing an alert adds a small command to that tool's local hook settings, and Notchware shows you the command before it is installed, under Settings and AI Agents. The command writes short status events, such as needs approval or task completed, to a file in your Library folder. It does not read or send your prompts, code or responses. That is a narrower claim than most agent tooling makes, and you can confirm it yourself because the hook is a plain command sitting in a config file. The rest of the privacy picture is equally concrete. Notchware has no account system, no analytics or crash reporting and no cloud backend, and status is read locally to draw the island. Media control goes through macOS Automation, so you grant that once and it touches Spotify or Apple Music only. Licensing is the single point where data leaves the machine: activating, deactivating or opening with a saved licence sends the key to Dodo Payments for validation along with a generic device label, the key is stored in macOS Keychain, and your Mac's name is not sent. The purchase terms are unusually clean for a Mac utility. It is a one-time payment with no subscription, handled by Dodo Payments as merchant of record, with a 14-day money-back guarantee. It needs macOS 14.6 Sonoma or later and runs on both Apple silicon and Intel, built in SwiftUI. Where to set expectations: this is a notification surface, not an agent console. It tells you that an agent wants you and then gets out of the way. It does not show you the session, and it cannot approve a command or answer a prompt from the notch, so you still switch to the terminal. Alerts also only fire for the tools whose hook you have installed and inspected, and only Codex, Claude Code and Cursor have documented hooks today. And the whole thing needs a MacBook with a notch, which rules out most desktops and every non-Apple machine.
Pricing & Plans
Free to download and use. Pro is a one-time $3.99 purchase with no subscription, unlocking AI agent alerts, sounds and Lock Screen features. Checkout runs through Dodo Payments with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Free
Free to download and use
- Now Playing with artwork and playback controls
- Battery, volume, brightness and Focus indicators
- Wi-Fi and internet status
- Display and fullscreen options
- Codex, Claude Code and Cursor alerts
Pro
One-time purchase, no subscription
- Everything in Free
- Approval and completion sounds
- Lock Screen music controls
- Hide your Lock Screen profile photo and name
- 14-day money-back guarantee
Best For
Recommended use cases and scenarios where Notchware shines.
Pros
- The free tier is usable on its own, covering Now Playing, battery, volume, brightness, Focus and network status
- Codex, Claude Code and Cursor alerts with optional sounds, bought once for $3.99 rather than monthly
- Hook commands are displayed before installation and write only short status events, never reading prompts or code
- No account, no analytics and no cloud backend, stated plainly in the vendor privacy policy
- Runs natively on Apple silicon and Intel with macOS 14.6 Sonoma or later
- Indicators can be disabled individually and the island hides during fullscreen apps
Cons
- Requires a MacBook with a notch, so most desktops and all non-Apple machines are excluded
- A notification surface rather than a console, so approving an agent still means switching to the terminal
- Alerts fire only for tools whose hook you have installed, and only Codex, Claude Code and Cursor are documented
- Media control needs macOS Automation permission, which is broader than just the app playing audio
- Hiding the Lock Screen profile uses a helper you approve in System Settings that changes a macOS login window setting
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