Warble and other notch apps

Several Mac apps turn the notch into something useful. Warble does one job: it shows what's playing and lets you control it. This page says what that means, so you can tell whether Warble is the right one for you.

Pick Warble if you want

• Music controls and nothing else. Play, pause, skip, move through a song, change the volume and switch speakers, from a hover or a click.
• An app that stays out of the way. When nothing's playing, Warble draws nothing and uses no CPU.
• No account, no cloud, no analytics. It goes online only to check for updates, after it asks, and to find the album cover for a song playing in your browser. See the privacy page.
• Free, open source software. The code is on GitHub under the GPL-3.0 license, with no ads.
• A notch on any Mac. On a Mac without a notch, or an external display, Warble draws a notch of its own at the top of the screen.
• Any player. Apple Music, Spotify, podcast apps and video in Safari, Chrome or another browser.

Pick something else if you want

• More than music. Warble has no calendar, file shelf, widgets, timers or battery readout. Apps such as Boring Notch, NotchNook and Alcove add some or all of these, and MediaMate focuses on media controls and a replacement for the volume and brightness pop-ups.
• An app that's finished. Warble is in beta. It works, and it's still being built.
• An app Apple has notarized. Warble isn't notarized yet, so macOS blocks it the first time you open it, and the install steps show how to open it anyway. Notarization is planned.

These other apps change their features and prices, so check each one's own site before you decide.

Try it

Warble needs macOS 15 or later, on Apple silicon or Intel. Install it with brew install lorcanchinnock/tap/warble, or download the zip. The user guide covers the rest.