NotchOwl vs Boring Notch: Free Media Notch or Paid Planner?

Boring Notch is the best-known free notch app for the Mac. Boring Notch is open source, costs nothing, and turns the notch into a music control center with a calendar, a file shelf and replacement volume and brightness HUDs. NotchOwl is a paid daily planner that lives in the same spot. The two barely overlap, so this comparison is mostly about which job you want your notch to do.

I make NotchOwl, so weigh my view with that in mind; I’ve tried to be plain about where Boring Notch is the better pick, and for a lot of people it is. Facts here come from Boring Notch’s GitHub README and release notes and from NotchOwl’s own documentation, checked in November 2026.

The short verdict

Choose Boring Notch if you want free music controls in the notch, a file shelf with AirDrop, a nicer volume and brightness HUD, or support for an Intel Mac. Choose NotchOwl if you want the notch to hold your tasks: planning across the day and the week, reminders that ring in the notch and on your iPhone through Apple Reminders, a focus timer, a daily notepad and Insights, for $9 once on up to 3 Macs. If you want music and a planner, you can run both.

Boring Notch is a free, open-source (GPL-3.0) Mac notch app for music controls, a file shelf and system HUDs with no task list of its own, while NotchOwl is a $9 one-time notch planner for tasks, focus, notes and Apple Reminders sync.

NotchOwl vs Boring Notch at a glance

The biggest differences

Free and open source vs a $9 license

Boring Notch costs nothing, and its GPL-3.0 source code is public on GitHub, where the project has about 11,300 stars. You can read the code, build the app yourself or contribute to it. Building from source needs macOS 15.6 or later and Xcode 26 or later. If you like the app, the team takes donations through Ko-fi and GitHub Sponsors.

NotchOwl is closed source and paid. A license costs $9 once, shown as an early-bird price (normally $29), and covers up to 3 Macs with lifetime updates and a 14-day money-back guarantee. There is no subscription. The NotchOwl installer is free to download, but there is no free tier or trial: the app needs a license to run. See NotchOwl’s pricing for what the license includes.

Music and system controls vs tasks

Boring Notch’s README describes the notch turning into “a dynamic music control center.” Around that, Boring Notch offers:

• Music controls with a visualizer. The 2.8 release candidates add a real-time waveform, a compact player and audio-output switching.
• A calendar. The 2.8 release candidates add an optional weekly view and join buttons for Meet, Zoom, Teams, Webex, Whereby and Jitsi.
• A file shelf with AirDrop.
• Replacement HUDs for volume and brightness.
• Notification mirroring with per-app filtering, and battery details such as charger wattage and time to empty, both new in 2.8-rc.0.
• A camera mirror.

Boring Notch has no to-do list or planner of its own. Its calendar can show Apple Reminders that are due and let you check them off, which its README roadmap marks as done under “Reminders integration”.

NotchOwl is the reverse. NotchOwl has no music controls, no file shelf with AirDrop and no HUD replacement. What NotchOwl has is a planner:

• Tasks for today and any future day, with Week showing the days ahead beside an Inbox for tasks without a day.
• Unfinished tasks carried forward, and an Overdue tab with Reschedule.
• Natural-language capture: “call mom tomorrow at 5pm” gets its day and a reminder. Dictation works too, recognized on your Mac.
• Live activities: when a reminder comes due, the notch opens with a chime, and you can snooze it or mark it done right there.
• A focus timer, as a countdown or a stopwatch, that stays visible in the notch.
• An autosaving daily notepad, where Command–Return turns a line into a task.
• Insights with completed tasks, active focus time and your peak hours.
• Clips, where new screenshots, screen recordings and copied items hang in the notch.

iPhone, Apple Watch and AI agents

NotchOwl’s optional two-way Apple Reminders sync keeps a NotchOwl list in Reminders in step with your tasks, so they reach your iPhone and Apple Watch through iCloud. NotchOwl also includes a local MCP server, so Claude Code, the Claude app or Cursor can add and update tasks, set reminders and run the focus timer once you click Connect in Settings › AI agents. Boring Notch reads Apple Reminders in its calendar but has no task list of its own, and its README doesn’t mention AI agents.

Release status and installing

Boring Notch’s last stable release, 2.7.3, came out on November 24, 2025. Since then only release candidates have shipped, the latest being 2.8-rc.2 on October 10, 2026, and the GitHub repository is still active. The app took the name “Boring Notch” in 2.8-rc.1. If you want the newest features, you’ll be running a pre-release.

Boring Notch’s README says the app isn’t signed with an Apple Developer account, so macOS warns on first launch that it comes from an unidentified developer. The README calls this expected and suggests running an xattr command in Terminal or clicking Open Anyway in System Settings, which it says doesn’t work for everyone. Installing with the Homebrew cask (brew install --cask TheBoredTeam/boring-notch/boring-notch) bypasses the warning.

NotchOwl installs from a DMG: drag it to Applications and enter the license key from your purchase email. NotchOwl’s first release was on September 15, 2026, and version 2.2.2 shipped on November 5, 2026. Every release is listed in the NotchOwl changelog.

Macs and screens

Boring Notch runs on Apple silicon and Intel Macs with macOS 14 Sonoma or later. NotchOwl needs macOS 14 or later and an Apple silicon Mac, so Intel owners should pick Boring Notch.

Boring Notch’s README doesn’t mention external monitors or Macs without a notch, though its settings include Show on all displays and a preferred display, and its roadmap lists notch sizing for different display sizes. NotchOwl draws a notch at the top of each external monitor, follows your pointer between screens and steps aside for full-screen apps. On a Mac without a notch, NotchOwl opens at the top center of the screen.

Where Boring Notch is better

• Price. Boring Notch is free. NotchOwl is not, and has no free tier.
• Openness. You can read, build and change Boring Notch’s code.
• Music. Controls with a visualizer, and a waveform, compact player and output switching in the 2.8 release candidates.
• Files. A file shelf with AirDrop.
• System HUDs. Replacement volume and brightness overlays.
• Intel Macs. Boring Notch runs on them; NotchOwl does not.
• Extras. A camera mirror, plus notification mirroring and battery details in the release candidates.

Where NotchOwl is better

• Tasks. A full planner for today, future days and the week, with carry-forward, repeats, deadlines, priorities and projects.
• Reminders. Live activities in the notch when a reminder comes due.
• iPhone and Apple Watch. Two-way Apple Reminders sync, off until you turn it on.
• Focus. A countdown or stopwatch on a task, with Insights that count only active focus time.
• Notes. A daily notepad that saves itself and turns lines into tasks.
• External monitors. A drawn notch on every monitor.
• AI agents. A local MCP server for Claude Code, the Claude app and Cursor.
• Stable releases. NotchOwl 2.2.2 shipped in November 2026; Boring Notch’s newest features are in release candidates.

Can you use both?

Yes. Boring Notch handles music, files and HUDs, and NotchOwl handles tasks, so they don’t duplicate each other. The catch is space: both open from the same spot at the top of the screen, so on a single notch they compete for the same hover.

NotchOwl’s Settings › Show on can keep NotchOwl on your MacBook’s screen or on one monitor, and Option–N opens NotchOwl from the keyboard on any screen. Boring Notch’s settings include a preferred display, so you can try giving each app its own screen; check how the two behave together on your own setup before you rely on the pair.

Other free notch apps

If free is the requirement, a few other notch apps cost nothing:

• Atoll is free and open source (GPL-3.0) and builds on Boring Notch’s codebase. Atoll adds live activities, lock screen widgets, system stats, timers, clipboard history and calendar previews, but its README lists a notched MacBook as a requirement. See Atoll’s site.
• NotchDrop is a free file drop for the notch, but its App Store build hasn’t been updated since November 2024, so check that it works on your macOS version.
• TopNotch is free but hides the notch rather than using it.

None of these has a task list. The notch planners covered on this blog are all paid: NotchOwl, Notchable and NotchNook Pro. The NotchOwl vs NotchNook comparison covers the paid all-in-one option.

Verdict

Boring Notch is the best pick for people who want free media controls, a file shelf and nicer system HUDs, and it is the only one of the two that runs on Intel. NotchOwl is the pick when you want the notch to hold your day: tasks, reminders, focus, notes and Insights, synced to your iPhone through Apple Reminders. If you need both, run both.

Download Boring Notch only from its official GitHub repository or its Homebrew cask, and NotchOwl only from notchowl.com. In July 2026, a fake ad on X impersonating another notch app, DynamicLake, spread Mac malware. For more options, see the best notch apps for Mac.