Compared 1 August 2026
FunNotch, next to the original.
The two best-known free Mac notch apps, side by side. FunNotch started as a recreation of TheBoringNotch — a genuinely good, open-source app that got there first — and has since grown past it. This is the short list: the things you'd actually notice about what each puts in your MacBook notch, including the ones where theirs still wins.
How to read this
Only differences worth caring about are listed — the two apps agree on far more than this table shows, and a row for every checkbox helps nobody. The TheBoringNotch column comes from their own website and README on 1 August 2026. Not listed means the feature doesn't appear there, not that it's impossible or unwanted; Planned means it's on their published roadmap. They ship quickly, so check boringnotch.com before treating any of this as current.
| Feature | FunNotch | TheBoringNotch |
|---|---|---|
| Media | ||
| Now playing, with artwork and a spectrum | ✓ | ✓ |
| Drag the progress bar to seek | ✓ | Not listed |
| Shelf and files | ||
| Drag-and-drop file shelf, with AirDrop | ✓ | ✓ |
| Opens to meet a drag already in flight | ✓ | Not listed |
| Catches screenshots and finished downloads on its own | ✓ | Not listed |
| Rename, auto-expire, file away to a folder | ✓ | Not listed |
| Clipboard and focus | ||
| Clipboard history, searchable and pinnable | ✓ | Not listed |
| Focus timer that blocks websites and appsSafari, Chrome, Brave, Edge and Arc, plus Pomodoro cycles and session totals | ✓ | Not listed |
| Glanceable information | ||
| Battery, with charging percentage | ✓ | Planned |
| Calendar events and reminders | ✓ | Planned |
| Finds the join link inside a meeting inviteZoom, Meet, Teams, Webex | ✓ | Not listed |
| Weather | ✓ | Planned |
| Bluetooth connect and disconnect activity | ✓ | Planned |
| Configurable widgets beside the cameraTwelve of them — clock, battery, weather, Wi-Fi, CPU, memory, disk and more, any number per side | ✓ | Planned |
| System | ||
| Camera mirror | ✓ | ✓ |
| HUD for volume, brightness and keyboard backlight | ✓ | ✓ |
| Replaces the system HUD rather than sitting beside itCatches the key before macOS acts on it, so you never get two | ✓ | Not listed |
| Menu bar icon, or a live readout beside it | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hidden from screen recordings and shares | ✓ | Not listed |
| Gestures, and a size and border that fit your display | ✓ | Planned |
| Custom themes you can save | ✓ | Not listed |
| Diagnostics screenWhat the app can and cannot see, and how to fix each gap | ✓ | Not listed |
| A game in the notchNotch Breakout, mouse-controlled | ✓ | Not listed |
| The project itself | ||
| Open source | — | ✓ GPL-3.0 |
| A team, a community, and a track record | — | ✓ |
Which should you use?
If you want the most in the notch today — clipboard history, focus blocking, a HUD that actually replaces the system one — use this.
If you want software you can read and audit, that a community stands behind, and that will still be maintained in a year, use theirs. It's open source, it has a team, and it got here first. No feature table beats that.
Who each one actually suits
Feature tables are bad at this, because they imply the app with more ticks wins. It depends far more on which of two risks bothers you more.
Pick TheBoringNotch if the project matters as much as the app. It is GPL-3.0, so you can read every line that runs on your Mac — which is a reasonable thing to insist on for software that watches your clipboard and sits over every window you use. It has contributors, releases and issue threads, so if the original author stops, someone else can continue. It is also notarised by Apple, so it opens on first double-click with no warning and no detour through System Settings.
Pick FunNotch if you want the features now. Clipboard history, focus sessions that actually block sites, a HUD that replaces the system one instead of sitting next to it, and twelve configurable widgets are all here today. Several of them are on TheBoringNotch's published roadmap, and given how quickly they ship, "today" is the only honest claim this page can make.
The uncomfortable version: FunNotch is one person's spare-time project with no community and no source to inspect. If that project stops, nothing happens next. That is a real difference and the table above cannot show it, which is why it is written here instead.
What switching costs
Very little, in either direction, which is the useful thing to know before spending an evening on this.
Both are ordinary Mac apps that keep their settings in their own preferences and their state on your machine. Neither has an account, so there is nothing to migrate and nothing to cancel. You can install one, use it for a week, and drag it to the Trash having lost nothing but the time.
Do not run both at once. Two notch apps drawing into the same strip of screen will fight over it, and both will look broken. Quit one before launching the other. If you want to compare properly, give each a few days on its own rather than switching back and forth in an afternoon.
The one thing that does not survive a switch is your permission grants. Accessibility, Calendar and Camera are granted per app, so whichever you move to will ask again. That is macOS being careful rather than either app being awkward.
The signing difference, in practice
This is the one row in the table that changes your first five minutes rather than your daily use, so it is worth spelling out.
TheBoringNotch is signed and notarised with a paid Apple Developer certificate. You download it, you open it, it opens.
FunNotch is signed ad-hoc, because a Developer ID costs $99 a year and this is a free app made by one person. macOS will refuse the first launch and tell you it cannot verify the developer. Getting past it takes about twenty seconds through System Settings, and there is a page here that walks through it — but it is a real inconvenience and it is fair to weigh it.
What that warning means is worth being precise about, because it is the same warning malware produces. It means Apple has not checked the app, not that Apple checked it and found something. If that distinction does not comfort you, that is a perfectly sound reason to use the notarised one — and what FunNotch does and does not send over the network is written down for anyone who wants to weigh it properly rather than guess.
How this page is kept honest
The TheBoringNotch column is taken from their own website and README, not from testing their app, and it was read on 1 August 2026. Not listed means the feature did not appear in either place on that date — it does not mean the app cannot do it, and it certainly does not mean it never will.
A comparison page written by one of the two apps is a biased source and you should treat this one accordingly. The mitigation here is that the rows where theirs wins are in the same table as the rows where this one does, at the bottom, not omitted. Go and read theirs before deciding.