Feature and improvements to now-playing widget (and some general interface issues)

[l0afloafloaf]

Quick thoughts.

• It would be nice if the notch animated on a track change from a music player, similar to the animation when a download is completed. If track info isn't shown when minimised, it could pop up and show track info for a second at this point.

• I like have artist/track info visible in the notch when minimised, but when the track info is quite long, notchy will continuously scroll across to show all track info. This constant motion is distracting. It should be possible to disable this - or, the motion should behave similar to animation within apple music, eg., it scrolls all the way across, then pauses for a few seconds before scrolling again. Animation should be much less frequent.

• It should be simple to launch the actual playing app (spotify/music) from within the now-playing hover view. It should be clear from where the media is playing and you should be able to click there and launch the app. It's not much point having this widget if I can't click through and interact with the media player itself.

• It would be nice if in one of these views the album artwork was much larger or took prominence. Or artwork info is better. There is a lot of unutilised negative space.

• I've disabled the actual now-playing tab as I find it useless, I just use it in home. The now-playing tab doesn't offer any extra features. It could have larger artwork. I don't use lyric view. It also frequently is bigger than the expanded panel, meaning I have to scroll down within the notchy app. This is a more general interface bug in notchy, I don't think this is intentional? Particularly given the Now Playing tab seems to be mostly negative space, so not sure why it is so big.

• I had to disable having stacked items in the home tab for this same reason cos it would mean they would spill past the size of the expanded panel.

• While we're on the home tab, would be good if you had more control over what's there. Why can I only see 3 items from my clipboard even thouhj the panel is then mostly empty? Why can't I see icons for images in my shelf instead of just file names? Why can't I drag items directly to notchy and have it recognise I'm dragging them to the shelf - at the moment, I have to select the files tab first and even then its pretty unreliable. Why aren't there any settings for this 'shelf' feature?

Thanks for the app!!

[vishvavariya]

Thanks for the detailed examples. Notchy 1.0.194 fixes the Now Playing tab's height handling: artwork adapts to the available height while the playback controls retain their usable size. Very small panels can still scroll, but artwork should no longer force controls below an otherwise mostly empty panel.

Home's Clipboard card now uses the available card height for its row count instead of a fixed three-item preview. The Shelf preview has file-type icons, and Home card headings now offer navigation into their full sections. The Home Shelf remains a preview/entry into Files; image thumbnails and a direct drop target on that Home card are separate requests. Shelf persistence is available through “Remember Shelf Files” in the Files tab's settings under Integrations.

You can already open the playing app by clicking the artwork in Home's player or the Now Playing tab. Your request to make that action clear and available directly in the hover preview remains separate. Track-change announcements and a dedicated marquee-motion preference were not added in this release.

Drag handling also changed so resolving a promised file cannot block the UI on hover. I still need a live retest of your unreliable drop case; please note whether the source is Finder or another app and whether you drop on the collapsed notch, Home, or Files. If the player or stacked Home cards still require scrolling through empty space, a current screenshot and panel-sizing settings would help. I haven't marked all the requests resolved by the player fix.

[l0afloafloaf]

Thanks for the quick response!! How big does the height of the expanded panel need to be to avoid scrolling? I have it set to 240pt and it still necessitates scrolling on the now playing tab... seems like an waste of space as there's still a lot of negative space around there. And would rather not have the panel much bigger than that.

There's some glitches with elements loading (sometimes playlist and favourite button appear and sometimes they disappear) so its hard to know how tall it should be. It still overflows / scrolls at 400px high, and then my home tab looks weirdly long...

Would be nice to open player from the hover view, and not from home tab, but appreciate the ability to do it now from home tab.

I did find .194 a lot glitchier with now playing though. It didn't recognise apple music was playing something. It had some ghost playback song in the 'control centre'. Rebooting notchy and music didn't fix it but rebooting computer did. Was also have a couple issues with album artwork not appearingh but it seems to have calmed down.

Will lyk about the shelf issues.

[vishvavariya]

Thanks for the follow-up. You shouldn't have to make Home unusually tall just to fit this player. Notchy 1.0.195 makes another layout correction: without lyrics, the player tries a compact side-by-side arrangement before adding scrolling. Hosting-view regression checks pass at both 240pt and 400pt panel heights, including Apple Music's extra controls. Please try your existing 240pt setting first; very short viewports can still scroll to keep controls reachable.

You can now open the playing app directly from the hover preview by clicking its artwork or the source-app name with the arrow. That action is available in the preview itself.

For the changing controls and missing artwork, this release refreshes the current media session when the player opens, refreshes the per-track extra controls, and prevents an older refresh/artwork result from replacing newer media state. Those changes target stale Notchy state, but I haven't confirmed your Apple Music failure on your Mac, and I can't claim they fix the ghost item in macOS Control Center. If it returns, please note whether Control Center and Notchy disagree about the track/source, and your macOS version.

Home card bodies that link to full sections are also clickable now, while their individual controls keep their own actions. The marquee-motion preference, track-change announcement, and Home Shelf image thumbnails/direct drop target remain separate requests. Thanks for keeping the reports specific; please let me know whether the 240pt player and hover-preview action work for you after updating.

[l0afloafloaf]

Thanks for the quick update.

I was experiencing a more persistent and significant issue with Notchy that caused me to uninstall the app. Namely, it was very difficult to get Notchy to quit. I right click 'click' and it persists in the notch. The only effective method to actually quit was killing process in activity monitor.

I just reinstalled .195, and this issue persists. When I right click and "quit" notchy, the app quit, before forcibly reopening, and only displaying the now-playing widget - the home page doesn't seem accessible. Right clicking and quitting is ineffective, and the process needs to be killed.

I've uninstalled. I'll keep trying out the app once this issue is resolved.

[arnursultan]

Hey! I found a UI issue with Notchy on macOS 27.

I’m using a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M chip and Notchy 1.0.195.

When Notchy is not running, the menu bar and notch look normal. As soon as Notchy launches, it renders an extra black strip directly below the physical notch. It looks like Notchy is extending the notch area lower than the actual notch.

I checked the notch-related values in Notchy’s preferences:
physicalNotch: 185 × 32
menuBarInset: 33
hideNotch: false
virtualNotch: false

So the detected notch dimensions seem correct, but the rendered area is still too tall.

The issue started after updating to macOS 27. Quitting Notchy immediately removes the extra black area.

I’ve also tried restarting Notchy and resetting its settings, but the issue remains.

[vishvavariya]

Thanks for the exact model, OS version, and notch measurements. I have not confirmed that 1.0.196 fixes this extra black strip, so I don’t want to call it resolved based on the general window changes. Could you try 1.0.196 and, if it remains, share a screenshot with Notchy running plus the selected Pill Shape and Height Offset values (Settings → Appearance)? Those two settings can intentionally extend the rendered pill below the physical notch, and they were not included in the values you listed. A matching screenshot with Notchy quit would also help compare the strip.

[vishvavariya]

@l0afloafloaf Thanks for documenting this, and I’m sorry the repeated relaunch made Notchy unusable. I fixed a termination/relaunch loop and a menu-tracking path that could leave Quit waiting on work scheduled behind the menu. Both app-menu Quit and pill-menu Quit now stay exited in regression checks; Restart still relaunches normally. Notchy 1.0.196 is available here: https://github.com/vishvavariya/notchy-feedback/releases/tag/v1.0.196. I could not reproduce your exact setup, so I have not marked your report confirmed. If you are willing to try again, please update and test the same right-click → Quit path; if it reopens, tell me whether Home is still inaccessible and whether you used the menu-bar/app menu or the pill menu.

[l0afloafloaf]

Quitting is much more responsive now, works as intended - thank you!

[arnursultan]

I’m on Notchy 1.0.198 now.
Shape: Notch
Pill Height Adjustment: 0 pt
The black strip is still there with these settings. I’ve attached screenshots showing the issue.

[vishvavariya]

Great to hear Quit works now, thanks for coming back to confirm.

Two of your original requests are in Notchy 1.0.199. Both are off by default, under Settings → Now Playing:

• Announce New Tracks: when the song changes, the notch briefly shows the new title and artist.
• Stop Title Scrolling: long titles shrink to fit instead of scrolling across the notch, so there's no constant motion.

Home Shelf image thumbnails and dropping files straight onto the Home Shelf are still open requests.

[l0afloafloaf]

thanks!

re: Stop title scrolling, thanks for this, though sometimes scaling is quite extreme, particularly on a notch. I notice that you have also reduced the frequency of the scrolling, so that does resolve a lot that issue without selecting 'stop title scrolling'. I had initially submitted this feedback while using my macbook with an external monitor, but i've now disabled this 'show track info' setting, because it is not usable when viewed on a screen with a notch.

With a notch there is simply not enough room to display any content. With a pill, it works well, and with longer titles, the pill itself can expand to show info, reducing scrolling frequency, or extreme scaling of text.

Is it possible for artist info to be always visible only in 'pill' view or when used on screen with no notch?

Notch view;
Artist info displayed:

Stop title scrolling selected:

Pill View:
Artist info displayed:

Stop title scrolling selected:

Appreciate announce new tracks

• At the moment, it doesn't seem to pull album artwork, even if that artwork is visible in the now playing pill/tab:

Otherwise its quite nice

[vishvavariya]

Thanks for coming back on this. In the next update, Notchy 1.0.201, Stop Title Scrolling shrinks a long title to no less than 85% of its normal size and ends it with "…" past that. Before, it could shrink to 60%, which was too small in the notch. Glad the slower scrolling already covers most of it for you.

[vishvavariya]

@l0afloafloaf Notchy 1.0.201 is out now: with Stop Title Scrolling on, a long title shrinks to no less than 85% and then ends with "…". Let me know how it reads in the notch.

[vishvavariya]

Thanks for checking on 1.0.198 with Notch shape and 0pt. Those rule out the two settings that deliberately make the pill taller, so this isn't fixed yet.

The screenshots show Settings but not the strip itself. Could you attach two crops of the top-center of the screen, one with Notchy running and one with it quit? Also try one thing: turn off Glass Surfaces (Settings → Appearance) and check whether the strip changes. On macOS 27, Notchy's glass edge or shadow around the notch could show up as a dark band, and that test would tell the two causes apart.

[arnursultan]

I’ve attached two screenshots — one with Notchy running and one with Notchy closed.
I also updated to version 1.0.199, but unfortunately the issue is still there.

[vishvavariya]

Thanks, those screenshots show it clearly. With Notchy running, macOS draws its darker menu-bar background across the whole bar, and the gray line is that background's bottom edge. With Notchy quit, the bar stays transparent. Notchy doesn't tint the menu bar itself, so one of its features is making macOS 27 think a window is sitting under the bar.

To find which feature, could you export your settings (Settings → About → Export Settings, or the notchy-backup.plist already on your desktop), zip it and attach it here? GitHub won't take a .plist directly. If you'd rather not share it publicly, you can email it to vishvavariya@notchy.dev. It holds your Notchy preferences (things like your weather location and tab choices), so look it over first if that matters. I'll load your setup on a test Mac, find the cause and fix it.

[arnursultan]

Notchy Settings 2026-10-07.notchysettings.zip

[vishvavariya]

Thanks for the settings file. I loaded it into 1.0.199 on a test Mac and couldn't reproduce the dark bar. Here's what I found.

Your screenshots show that the darkening runs across the whole menu bar, edge to edge, and stops exactly at its bottom edge. Notchy's window doesn't cover that area, so macOS is drawing that background, not Notchy. I also need to correct my earlier guess: I tested windows sitting under the menu bar on macOS 27, and none of them darken it. So it's something else Notchy does on your Mac.

The likely reason I can't reproduce it is that my test Mac has no notch. I can fake a notch for Notchy's layout, but macOS still treats the screen as one without a notch.

Two checks would narrow it down:

1. Does the dark bar appear as soon as Notchy launches, or only after you first open the panel?
2. In System Settings → Menu Bar, what is "Show menu bar background" set to?

Also, your export has Pill Height Adjustment at +1 pt rather than 0. Please set it to 0 so we're testing the same setup.

[arnursultan]

I updated to 1.0.200, but the issue is still there.
I’ve attached two photos taken with my phone because the difference is much easier to see this way. The black area is not just a small strip — with Notchy running, it darkens the whole menu bar area below the physical notch, and I lose around 10% of the usable screen height at the top.
I’ve also tried the different notch-related settings, including setting Pill Height Adjustment to 0 pt, but it doesn’t change anything.

[vishvavariya]

Thanks, that's the key detail. Only one Notchy window is on screen: the transparent canvas that holds the pill and the open panel. It starts at the top edge and is 760pt tall so the panel has room to open without the window resizing. So macOS is reacting to that window's shape, not to anything Notchy draws.

I can't test this myself without a notched Mac, so here's a quick test that shows which part of the shape triggers it. It opens an invisible window shaped like Notchy's, without Notchy, for 15 seconds, then closes it. Nothing is installed and nothing is changed.

1. Quit Notchy and check that the menu bar is back to normal.
2. Paste this into Terminal:

cat > /tmp/notchy-probe.js <<'PROBE'
ObjC.import('Cocoa');
function run(argv) {
  var H = parseFloat(argv[0]), W = parseFloat(argv[1]);
  $.NSApplication.sharedApplication.setActivationPolicy($.NSApplicationActivationPolicyAccessory);
  var s = $.NSScreen.mainScreen.frame;
  var w = $.NSWindow.alloc.initWithContentRectStyleMaskBackingDefer(
    $.NSMakeRect(s.origin.x + (s.size.width - W) / 2, s.origin.y + s.size.height - H, W, H),
    0, $.NSBackingStoreBuffered, false);
  w.level = 25; w.opaque = false; w.hasShadow = false;
  w.backgroundColor = $.NSColor.clearColor; w.ignoresMouseEvents = true;
  w.collectionBehavior = 1 | 16 | 256;
  w.orderFrontRegardless;
  $.NSRunLoop.currentRunLoop.runUntilDate($.NSDate.dateWithTimeIntervalSinceNow(15));
  return 'done ' + W + 'x' + H;
}
PROBE

3. Then run these one at a time. While each one runs, watch whether the menu bar turns black:

osascript -l JavaScript /tmp/notchy-probe.js 760 1520
osascript -l JavaScript /tmp/notchy-probe.js 40 1520
osascript -l JavaScript /tmp/notchy-probe.js 760 400

The first is Notchy's exact shape, the second is the same width but only pill height, and the third is the same height but narrow. Just reply with which ones turned the bar black, for example "1 yes, 2 no, 3 yes". That tells me whether it's the window's height or its width, and I can then change how Notchy sizes it.

[arnursultan]

I ran all three tests with Notchy completely quit, and the black bar did not appear in any of them.

1. 760 × 1520 — no black bar
2. 40 × 1520 — no black bar
3. 760 × 400 — no black bar
   So the transparent test window itself doesn’t trigger the issue. The black bar only appears when Notchy is actually running.

[vishvavariya]

Thanks for running all three, that rules out the window's size and position. One difference between my test window and Notchy's real one: your settings have Hide from Screen Capture turned on, which marks Notchy's windows as not capturable, and my test window was capturable. On macOS 27 the transparent menu bar may need to see what's behind it, so that could be what turns it black.

Two quick checks, whichever is easier:

1. With Notchy running, open Settings → Behavior, turn Hide from Screen Capture off, and see if the bar goes back to normal. (If it does, you can turn it back on afterwards; this just tells me where to look.)

2. Or, with Notchy quit, run the same test window but marked as not capturable. Paste this into Terminal:

cat > /tmp/notchy-probe2.js <<'PROBE'
ObjC.import('Cocoa');
function run(argv) {
  var H = 760, W = 1520;
  $.NSApplication.sharedApplication.setActivationPolicy($.NSApplicationActivationPolicyAccessory);
  var s = $.NSScreen.mainScreen.frame;
  var w = $.NSWindow.alloc.initWithContentRectStyleMaskBackingDefer(
    $.NSMakeRect(s.origin.x + (s.size.width - W) / 2, s.origin.y + s.size.height - H, W, H),
    0, $.NSBackingStoreBuffered, false);
  w.level = 25; w.opaque = false; w.hasShadow = false;
  w.backgroundColor = $.NSColor.clearColor; w.ignoresMouseEvents = true;
  w.collectionBehavior = 1 | 16 | 256;
  w.sharingType = 0;
  w.orderFrontRegardless;
  $.NSRunLoop.currentRunLoop.runUntilDate($.NSDate.dateWithTimeIntervalSinceNow(15));
  return 'done';
}
PROBE
osascript -l JavaScript /tmp/notchy-probe2.js

Just tell me whether the bar turned black.

[arnursultan]

Yo dude, the 1.0.203 update just fixed the bug! The black bar is finally gone and everything looks perfect now. Appreciate you fixing it!

[vishvavariya]

Amazing! Finally haha..hope you are liking the app so far :)

[mathaiosmuller-dot]

Can we please have the option for a square album art in the preview?
To this day I have never understood why album art has to be round or rounded or any other shape than a square.

[vishvavariya]

Thanks for asking. Settings → Now Playing → Square Album Art used to square the cover only in the closed notch. In the next update (1.0.203) the same switch makes the cover square everywhere: the closed notch, the hover player, the Home card and the Now Playing tab. It starts off, so turn it on there after updating.

[mathaiosmuller-dot]

Thanks so much!!!

[mathaiosmuller-dot]

Hey Vishvavariya, good to see devs reacting to the users comments!

BTW Notchy is my favourite notch app so far (free one that is) and I tried them all and have issues with every one of them. Notchy is finally delivering what I need. I will review it soon.

There is only some small things I would critisise:

1. I think the overall UI could be twaked a little and have it look more in line with Apple. I mean, the look is not quite there (forgive me as I am a designer) and with Apple, the devil is in the details: proportions, font, feel ect. I would love to see some work in there prior to additional features that I don't need. For my taste it's super bloated as I only need the basics that one could find also in Alcove and Seam ect.
2. the performance is not there yet. The pill/window opens not as smooth as it should. That is a bit of a bummer sometimes and I think this is where Alcove shines (then again, he is spending forever on the development of only 1 trick).

Just my 2 cents.

M

[vishvavariya]

That's great to hear, thank you for confirming on 1.0.203, and for running all those tests with me!

[vishvavariya]

Notchy 1.0.203 is out now: turn on Settings → Now Playing → Square Album Art and the cover is square in the closed notch, the hover player, the Home card and the Now Playing tab.

[vishvavariya]

Everything in this thread has shipped: the Now Playing improvements, Square Album Art everywhere (1.0.203) and the menu bar darkening fix (1.0.203, confirmed above). Closing it as resolved. Thanks everyone! New ideas are always welcome in a fresh discussion.