Open Source Dynamic Island for Mac: Boring Notch and More

#The open source Dynamic Island is Boring Notch

If you want a Dynamic Island on your MacBook and you specifically want it free and open, the answer is short: install Boring Notch. It is the main open source Dynamic Island for Mac, published by TheBoredTeam on GitHub and downloadable from boringnotch.com, and it is fully free with the source in the open. I tested it on a notched MacBook Pro alongside the app I build, and it does the core job well. When people search for an open source Dynamic Island Mac option, this is the one they land on.

Open source matters here for concrete reasons, not just principle. You can read exactly what the app does before you run it, which is reassuring for something that sits over your menu bar all day. You can compile it yourself if you would rather not trust a prebuilt binary. And if the project ever stalls, the code stays available for someone else to continue. I looked at whether it is trustworthy to run in a separate piece on whether Boring Notch is safe.

#What Boring Notch actually does

Here is what the app puts in and around the notch, based on running it on real hardware:

• Media controls: now playing with album art and an audio visualizer that reacts to the sound. This is the headline feature and it looks good.
• File shelf: a small tray you drop files onto to hold them while you drag between apps.
• Battery: charge status and level, including some connected accessories.
• Calendar and reminders: a glanceable view of what is next.
• HUD replacement: it swaps the stock volume and brightness overlays for its own versions near the notch.
• Camera mirror: a quick front-camera preview, handy for a hair check before a call.

That is a genuinely useful set, and for a lot of people it is all they want from a notch app: see the track, catch a file, replace the stock volume overlay. Verify the current feature list on the project's GitHub, since an active open source project changes fast and new capabilities land between releases.

#How to install Boring Notch

There are two ways in, depending on how much you trust prebuilt binaries.

The quick way: the prebuilt app

Download the packaged app from boringnotch.com, drag it into Applications, and open it. Because it is distributed outside the Mac App Store, Gatekeeper may warn you the first time; you approve it once in System Settings under Privacy and Security, then it launches like any other app and the notch comes alive. Most people take this route and never touch code.

The transparent way: build it from source

If you would rather compile it yourself, clone the repository from GitHub and open it in Xcode, which is Apple's free IDE from the Mac App Store. A free Apple ID is enough to build and run an app locally: you press Run, and Xcode compiles the Swift code and launches the notch app on your own machine. This is the real payoff of open source, because you never have to trust a binary you did not produce. It takes longer and you need Xcode installed, but nothing is hidden.

Either way, grant the permissions it asks for as you switch features on, and skip the ones you do not want. Nothing here requires an account.

#Where the open source route stops

Being fair to a free project means being clear about its edges. In my testing, Boring Notch is strong at media and system glances and deliberately stops short of the heavier, permission-hungry features. Specifically, the things it does not do:

• No meeting controls: it will not mute or leave a Zoom or Google Meet call from the notch.
• No on-device dictation: there is no press-to-talk transcription you start from the notch.
• No OCR clipboard: it does not keep a searchable clipboard history that can read text inside screenshots.

None of that is a knock on the project. Those features need deep accessibility hooks, a speech engine and a text-recognition pipeline, which is a lot to build and maintain for free. It simply marks the line between the open source option and the fuller paid apps. If your day lives inside music, files and battery, that line never bothers you.

#The other two ways to get one

If the open source app's ceiling is a problem, you have two honest alternatives.

Build your own

You can write your own notch app. It is more work than it sounds and more approachable than you might fear: a transparent panel pinned under the notch, an animatable SwiftUI shape for the silhouette, and spring animations that make it feel alive. We built NotchBay this way, and I wrote up the actual technique in the guide to building a Dynamic Island for Mac. If you already know Swift, a weekend gets you a working chip.

Pay once for a fuller app

Or skip the build and buy an app that already handles the heavy features. Full disclosure: I build one of them, NotchBay, so read this with that bias in mind. It is $19 one-time with a 3-day trial, and it adds the exact things Boring Notch leaves out: Zoom and Meet call controls, on-device dictation, and an OCR clipboard tray. If you want the open source pioneer against the paid option side by side, I compared NotchBay and boring.notch directly.

Whichever way you lean, start free. Try Boring Notch first, since it costs nothing and might be everything you need. If you hit its ceiling, you will know precisely which paid feature you are paying for. I keep a running list of the no-cost choices in the free Dynamic Island roundup.

#Frequently asked questions