Notchestra — your music, traced around the notch

Features

Small surface. Real controls.

Notchestra lives in the space macOS wastes — and turns it into a tiny, precise music instrument.

Ten skins

From a whisper-thin comet to audio-reactive Pulse — plus seasonal sets: Halloween, Christmas, a 3D snake, and your own album art riding the rail.

Scrub the rail

The rail is the timeline. Click or drag anywhere on it to seek the track.

Hover for more

Mouse over the notch for album artwork and transport controls, right where you're looking.

Track-change chip

A quiet side chip slides out when the track changes, then gets out of the way.

Spotify & Apple Music

Works with both, automatically following whichever is playing.

Every notched Mac

Measures your machine's actual notch and fits the rail to it — Pro or Air, any size.

Pricing

Free to run. Pro to go wild.

The rail, the controls, and two skins are free forever. Pro unlocks everything else — once, for every Mac you own (well, two).

Free

Free forever

The rail — your music, traced around the notch
Comet & Snow skins
Scrub to seek anywhere on the rail
Hover controls with album artwork
Track-change chip
Auto-updates

Download free

Pro

$9.99 one-time

All ten skins, including the seasonal set — Halloween, Christmas, Snake, Album Art…
Audio-reactive everything — skins that move with the music
Intensity control — from a whisper to a show
Shuffle per track — a fresh skin with every song

Get Notchestra Pro

One-time purchase · key delivered by email · VAT included · for you, on up to 2 of your Macs

Private by design

One network request. You approve it first.

Everything runs locally. Notchestra contacts its own server, notchestra.app, for exactly one thing: an update check (powered by Sparkle) that only runs after you say yes when it asks on second launch. Updates download and ask before installing — never silently. The only other thing Notchestra ever fetches is album art, straight from your music player's own source (details below) — nothing else ever leaves your Mac.
No accounts, no analytics, no telemetry. Not opt-out. Nonexistent. The update check carries no identifiers and sends nothing about you or your listening.
Playback info comes from Spotify and Music themselves, via their own local notifications — Notchestra never touches your listening history or credentials. With the Album Art skin active, Notchestra loads the cover image Spotify itself provides, directly from Spotify — the same image the Spotify app shows. Apple Music artwork arrives locally, with no network request at all.
Audio reactivity is optional and processed entirely on-device. Notchestra taps the audio your player app is outputting — a macOS system audio tap scoped to that one app. The microphone is never used or accessed. Audio is analyzed in the moment, never recorded, never stored.
This website uses Vercel's cookieless, anonymous analytics — page views and download counts, no cookies, no identifiers, no cross-site tracking. The app itself has none, full stop.

On first launch, macOS will ask you to allow Notchestra to control Spotify or Music — that's what powers play/pause and seeking. If you enable an audio-reactive skin, it will also ask for audio capture — that permission covers tapping your player's own output, not the microphone, which Notchestra never uses. Both prompts are standard macOS permissions, and both stay on your Mac.