# Mac Desktop Widgets: How to Add Them and the Best Ones > Mac desktop widgets: how to add, resize and remove them on macOS Sonoma or later, use iPhone widgets, and the best ones, from NotchOwl to Reminders and Things. By Aditya Jaiswal, founder of NotchOwl. Published 2026-11-12, updated 2026-11-12. Canonical URL: https://www.notchowl.com/blog/mac-desktop-widgets Mac desktop widgets take a minute to set up: Control-click the wallpaper, choose **Edit Widgets**, then click or drag a widget from the gallery onto the desktop and click **Done**. Desktop widgets need macOS 14 Sonoma or later; earlier versions keep widgets in Notification Center. The best ones depend on what you want at a glance: NotchOwl’s Today and Focus widgets (NotchOwl is a notch planner I make) show today’s tasks and a running focus timer, Apple’s Reminders widget lets you tick off tasks for free, Fantastical has 17 calendar widgets, and Shortcuts runs an automation in one click. The steps follow Apple’s Mac User Guide for macOS 27 and say where macOS Sonoma 14, Sequoia 15 and Tahoe 26 differ. NotchOwl is mine, so its section says what its widgets can’t do too. Details about other apps come from their help pages and App Store listings in November 2026. ## Quick picks: the best Mac desktop widgets - **Best for today’s tasks and a running focus timer:** NotchOwl’s Today and Focus widgets, $12 once - **Best free to-do widget:** Apple Reminders, built in, and you can tick off reminders in it - **Best calendar widgets:** Fantastical, free with an optional Premium subscription; Apple Calendar is the free choice - **Best for one-click automations:** Shortcuts, built in - **Most widget choices from one to-do app:** TickTick, seven Mac widgets - **Best interactive widget for Things users:** Things 3, $49.99 once - **Best for checking device batteries:** Batteries, built in ## How to add widgets to your Mac desktop Since macOS 14 Sonoma, widgets can sit directly on the desktop. In Apple’s words when Sonoma came out on September 26, 2023, they “blend seamlessly with the wallpaper”, and many became interactive, so you can complete a reminder or play and pause media without opening the app ([Apple Newsroom](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/09/macos-sonoma-is-available-today/)). These steps follow Apple’s guide to [adding and customizing widgets on Mac](https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchl52be5da5/mac) for macOS 27; Sonoma, Sequoia and Tahoe work the same way. 1. Control-click (or right-click) an empty spot on the wallpaper and choose **Edit Widgets** to open the widget gallery. 2. Search for a widget or pick an app in the gallery’s sidebar, and choose a size where the app offers several. 3. Click the widget (or its Add button) to place it automatically, or drag it to the spot you want on the desktop. 4. Drag placed widgets to rearrange them, then click **Done** in the bottom-right corner. Apple Support’s own video shows the same steps in under two minutes: [How to add widgets to the Mac desktop | Apple Support](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPUMtfJVyqo "Apple Support") ### Add widgets to Notification Center instead Widgets also live in Notification Center, which opens on the right side of the screen, over your windows. Apple’s [widget guide](https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchl52be5da5/mac) covers this too: 1. Click the date and time in the menu bar to open Notification Center. 2. Click **Edit Widgets** at the bottom. 3. Click a widget, or drag it to the upper-right corner of the screen; drag widgets up or down to reorder them, and click **Done**. Notification Center is the better home for widgets you check now and then, such as Weather; the desktop is better for the ones you want to glance at without clicking anything. ## How to resize, edit, move or remove a widget Every step here is in Apple’s guide to [adding and customizing widgets on Mac](https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchl52be5da5/mac). - **Change its size:** Control-click the widget and choose another size from the menu. Sizes run from small to extra large, depending on the app. - **Change what it shows:** Control-click the widget and choose **Edit** followed by the widget’s name, such as Edit Reminders, then click the highlighted setting (a list, a city, a folder) to change it. If there’s no Edit option, that widget’s content can’t be changed. - **Move it:** drag it to a new spot on the desktop. - **Remove it:** Control-click the widget and choose **Remove Widget**. In Notification Center you can also hold Option, hover over a widget and click its Remove button. Some widgets can be added more than once with different content: Apple’s Reminders guide, for example, suggests several Reminders widgets, each with its own size and list. ## How to use iPhone widgets on your Mac An app that has no Mac version, or no Mac widget, may still have a widget on your iPhone, and macOS can show it. [Apple’s requirements](https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchl52be5da5/mac): - Your iPhone runs iOS 17 or later. - Your iPhone and Mac are signed in to the same Apple Account. - Your iPhone is near your Mac or on the same Wi-Fi network. Then open **System Settings › Desktop & Dock**, go to **Widgets** and turn on iPhone widgets (Apple’s guide calls the switch **Use iPhone widgets**). Your iPhone’s widgets then appear in the widget gallery alongside the Mac ones. The catch comes when you click one: if the app isn’t installed on your Mac, the widget shows a message asking you to open the app on your iPhone. Treat iPhone widgets as displays, not shortcuts. ## Widget settings worth changing Open **System Settings › Desktop & Dock** and scroll to **Widgets**. The names differ a little between macOS versions, so each one below links to Apple’s guide for that version: - **Show Widgets:** choose **On Desktop**, **In Stage Manager**, or both ([Desktop & Dock settings](https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-desktop-dock-settings-mchlp1119/mac)). Clear On Desktop to hide your desktop widgets without deleting them. - **[Dim widgets on desktop](https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchl52be5da5/26/mac/26)** (macOS Tahoe 26 and later): **Automatically** switches between monochrome and full color, **Always** keeps widgets monochrome, and **Never** keeps them in full color. On macOS Sonoma and Sequoia the same choice is called **[Widget style](https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchl52be5da5/15.0/mac/15.0)**, with **Automatic**, **Monochrome** and **Full-color**. - **iPhone widgets:** the switch described above. Higher up, under **Desktop & Stage Manager**, one setting decides whether clicking the wallpaper moves every window aside to show your widgets. On macOS Tahoe 26 it is **[Click wallpaper to reveal desktop](https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchl52be5da5/26/mac/26)**, which you can set to Only in Stage Manager. Apple’s macOS 27 guide calls it **[Show Desktop](https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-desktop-dock-settings-mchlp1119/mac)**, with **Always on Wallpaper Click** and **Only in Stage Manager on Click**. If you rely on desktop widgets, let a wallpaper click always show them; if you keep clicking the wallpaper by accident, limit it to Stage Manager. > To add Mac desktop widgets, Control-click the wallpaper and choose Edit Widgets (macOS 14 Sonoma or later); iPhone widgets work too, but desktop widgets sit under your windows, so use a menu bar or notch app for anything you need in view all the time. ## The best Mac desktop widgets Table: The best Mac desktop widgets compared by what they show, sizes, whether you can act in the widget, and price (US prices, November 2026) | App | Mac widgets | Sizes | Act in the widget | Price | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | NotchOwl | Today (tasks, progress, streak, next event) and Focus (running timer) | Today: small, medium, large; Focus: small | No; a click opens NotchOwl | $12 once, up to 3 Macs | | Apple Reminders | One list per widget | Several | Yes, tick off reminders | Free, built in | | Apple Calendar | Upcoming events from every calendar in Calendar | Several | No; a click opens Calendar | Free, built in | | Shortcuts | One shortcut, or the first shortcuts in a folder | Small and larger | Yes, a click runs the shortcut | Free, built in | | Things 3 | Your lists, such as Today | Several | Yes, except Up Next | $49.99 once for the Mac | | TickTick | Seven, including Tasks, Eisenhower Matrix and Countdown | Several | Yes, on macOS 14 or later | Free; Premium $49.99/year | | Fantastical | 17, from a date icon to an event list with a calendar | Small, medium, large, extra large | A quick-action button | Free; Premium subscription, $6.99 or $56.99 in the App Store | | Todoist | An overview of your tasks | Size only can change | Not documented; a click opens Todoist | Free; Pro $5/month billed yearly | ### NotchOwl: today’s tasks and a running focus timer NotchOwl is a Mac planner that lives in the MacBook notch: hover over the notch or press Option–N, and today’s tasks, a focus timer, a daily notepad and the next two weeks of calendar events open over any app. Its two desktop widgets put the same day on the wallpaper: - **Today** comes in three sizes. The small one shows how many of today’s tasks you’ve done out of the total, your streak, and the next task with its time. The medium one adds up to four open tasks with their reminder times, with a flag on high-priority tasks. The large one adds the date, up to eight tasks and your next calendar event. - **Focus** is small and shows the running focus timer counting down (or up, for a stopwatch) with the task’s name, and marks it Paused when it is. When you aren’t focusing, it shows your next task. NotchOwl’s widgets are for looking, not ticking off: a click opens NotchOwl. That’s less than Reminders or Things offer in the widget itself, but in NotchOwl the full list is one hover away in the notch, above whatever window is in front, which a desktop widget can’t be. ![NotchOwl's notch panel open on a MacBook at Settings › Appearance, with Black & white, Paper texture, Text size, Width and Height controls](/images/blog/en/size-settings-cinematic.jpg) *Not a widget: the panel that opens from the notch, at Settings › Appearance, where you size it to your screen. Unlike a desktop widget, it opens over your windows.* If you want to tick tasks off from a widget anyway, turn on NotchOwl’s optional two-way Apple Reminders sync: your tasks then also live in a NotchOwl list in Reminders, which a Reminders widget can show on the Mac and on iPhone, and timed reminders ring on iPhone and Apple Watch. One person described the idea behind it on X: > I’ve always felt the Mac notch is such an oddly unused piece of space. There’s a lot of room around it, but most of the time it’s just... there. > > — [Shivam S. (@whatshivamdo)](https://x.com/whatshivamdo/status/2101389683528028600) - **Price:** $12 once for up to 3 Macs (an early-bird price, normally $39), with lifetime updates and a 7-day money-back guarantee. There is no free tier or trial. - **Requirements:** an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 14 Sonoma or later. A notch is optional: external monitors get a drawn notch, and Macs without one open NotchOwl at the top center of the screen. There is no iPhone app, so no iPhone widgets of its own. - **Limits:** its widgets can’t complete tasks, it reads your calendars without creating events, and it has no shared lists. - **Get it:** [download NotchOwl](/download) or see [what the license includes](/#pricing). ### Apple’s built-in widgets Apple’s own apps come with widgets too. A few worth adding: - **Reminders:** [Apple’s Reminders guide](https://support.apple.com/guide/reminders/use-reminders-widgets-remn83e1a96e/mac) says the widgets are interactive, so you can check off completed items right in the widget, and you can add several, each with its own size and list; a click opens that list in Reminders. More ways to see Reminders are in [Apple Reminders on Mac](/blog/apple-reminders-mac-menu-bar). - **Calendar:** the Up Next widget, in four sizes, and a List widget summarize your upcoming events, and clicking an event shows its details in Calendar ([Apple’s Calendar widget guide](https://support.apple.com/guide/calendar/icl0c43c9ee0/15.0/mac/15.0)). They include Google and Outlook accounts you’ve added to Calendar; [how to get a Google Calendar widget on Mac](/blog/google-calendar-on-mac) covers the setup. - **Shortcuts:** the small widget runs one shortcut you choose, and the larger ones show the first shortcuts in one of your folders. Control-click it and choose Edit Shortcuts to pick them; a click runs the shortcut right away ([Shortcuts widgets on Mac](https://support.apple.com/guide/shortcuts-mac/apd029b36d05/mac)). - **Batteries:** shows the status of connected devices, such as Beats headphones; Apple’s [Beats guide](https://support.apple.com/guide/beats/aside/devc39088582/26/web/27) shows how to add it. - **Weather:** conditions for the places you choose, on the desktop or in Notification Center ([Apple’s Weather guide](https://support.apple.com/guide/weather-mac/apdw93f0ea3e/mac)). ### Things 3: interactive lists for Things users Things 3’s widgets show your lists, such as Today, and you can complete to-dos right in every Things widget except Up Next. A Checkbox setting in the widget’s options turns that off if you’d rather a click open the app. [Cultured Code’s widget help](https://culturedcode.com/things/support/articles/5015936/) also notes that the widget shows current data only while Things is running. Things 3 costs $49.99 once for the Mac and needs macOS 13.3 or later ([Things 3 on the Mac App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/things-3/id904280696?mt=12)). ### TickTick: the widest choice TickTick lists seven Mac widgets: Tasks, Eisenhower Matrix, Today Habits, Daily View, Monthly Calendar View, Countdown and AI Assistant. Its [widget guide](https://help.ticktick.com/articles/7055780404896202752) says that since macOS 14 they can go on the desktop with interactive support. TickTick is free with 9 lists, and Premium costs $49.99 a year ([TickTick’s plans](https://ticktick.com/about/upgrade)). ### Fantastical: the most calendar widgets Flexibits lists [17 Fantastical widgets for the Mac desktop](https://flexibits.com/fantastical/help/widgets-and-extensions) in four sizes, from a small date icon and an Up Next widget to an extra-large event list beside a month calendar, plus a Fantastical Action button for adding events and tasks or searching. Fantastical is free for a basic calendar, and Flexibits Premium is a subscription with a 14-day free trial, listed at $6.99 and $56.99 as in-app purchases on the [US Mac App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fantastical-calendar-tasks/id975937182?mt=12), which also lists macOS 12.4 or later. ### Todoist: a simple overview Todoist’s Mac widget needs macOS 14 or later and gives an overview of your tasks; a click opens the app. On a Mac you can change only the widget’s size, not which project or filter it shows ([Todoist widget help](https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/use-a-todoist-widget-on-an-apple-device-ptRdme)). Todoist is free, and Pro costs $5 a month billed yearly ([Todoist pricing](https://www.todoist.com/pricing)). ## What desktop widgets can’t do Widgets are free and easy, but check their limits before you build your day around them: - **They sit under your windows.** Desktop widgets live on the wallpaper, so a full-screen browser or a stack of windows hides them. Notification Center widgets stay hidden until you open it. - **Most are a glance, not a tool.** Reminders, Things, TickTick and Shortcuts let you act in the widget; many others, including NotchOwl’s, Calendar and Todoist, open their app when clicked. - **They can turn monochrome.** On the Automatically setting, widgets switch between monochrome and full color, which some people find hard to read; set it to Never if so. - **iPhone widgets depend on the iPhone.** They need the phone nearby or on the same Wi-Fi, and clicking one may only tell you to open the app on your iPhone. For anything you need in sight while you work, a timer, the next task, the next meeting, the top of the screen works better than the desktop, because the menu bar and the notch stay visible above your windows in almost every app (full-screen apps hide the menu bar). ![A whole MacBook desktop with no windows open and NotchOwl's focus timer and sound bars in the menu bar beside the closed notch](/images/blog/en/widgets.jpg) *The other glanceable spot, not a widget: with the notch closed, NotchOwl’s running focus timer sits beside it in the menu bar, where app windows don’t reach.* ## Which widgets should you use? - **You want today’s tasks and a timer on the desktop and above your windows:** NotchOwl’s widgets, with the notch for the times a window covers them. - **You want to tick off tasks for free:** Apple Reminders, one widget per list. - **You use Things 3 or TickTick:** their own widgets, which are interactive. - **You live in your calendar:** Apple Calendar’s widget for free, Fantastical’s for the most layouts. - **You repeat the same actions:** a Shortcuts widget with your most-used shortcuts. - **Your favorite app is iPhone-only:** turn on iPhone widgets, and treat them as displays. For to-do lists that stay above your windows, [the best to-do list widgets and menu bar apps for Mac](/blog/best-menu-bar-to-do-apps-mac) compares widgets with menu bar and notch apps, and [what the MacBook notch is for](/blog/what-is-the-macbook-notch-for) explains what can live around it. ## Frequently asked questions ### How do I add widgets to my Mac desktop? Control-click the desktop wallpaper and choose Edit Widgets. Search or browse the widget gallery, then click a widget to place it automatically or drag it where you want it, and click Done. Desktop widgets need macOS 14 Sonoma or later. ### Why are my Mac desktop widgets gray? macOS can show desktop widgets in monochrome. Open System Settings › Desktop & Dock and set Dim widgets on desktop to Never for full color, or Automatically to switch between the two. On macOS Sonoma and Sequoia the same setting is called Widget style, with Automatic, Monochrome and Full-color. ### Can I use iPhone widgets on my Mac? Yes, if your iPhone runs iOS 17 or later, uses the same Apple Account as the Mac and is nearby or on the same Wi-Fi. Turn on iPhone widgets in System Settings › Desktop & Dock, and they appear in the widget gallery. If the app isn’t installed on the Mac, clicking the widget asks you to open the app on your iPhone. ### How do I remove a widget from my Mac desktop? Control-click the widget and choose Remove Widget. To remove several, Control-click the wallpaper, choose Edit Widgets and click each widget’s Remove button, then click Done. ### Can Mac widgets stay on top of other windows? No. Desktop widgets sit on the desktop under your app windows, and Notification Center widgets stay hidden until you open it. Clicking the wallpaper moves windows aside to show them; for something always in view, use a menu bar app or a notch app such as NotchOwl. ### Which macOS version has desktop widgets? macOS 14 Sonoma, released on September 26, 2023, added widgets on the desktop, interactive widgets and iPhone widgets on the Mac. Earlier versions show widgets only in Notification Center.