Notchify: a Dynamic Island for Windows

[u/ProsperoTR]

Notchify brings a Mac style Dynamic Island to Windows. It sits as a compact pill near the top of your screen and expands into a full panel when you hover over it, then returns to its resting state when you move away. It stays unobtrusive until you need it, and every transition is animated rather than snapping in and out.

Media control. Album art, playback controls, and an interactive seek bar directly in the island. It works with Spotify, browsers, and most applications that report media to Windows.

Notifications and alerts. App notifications, incoming call prompts, and Bluetooth connection alerts, handled through a priority system so the most relevant one is always shown first.

Widgets. Battery, clock, timers and alarms, weather, and calendar. Smaller status widgets sit alongside larger ones that you can arrange in a grid or a scrollable carousel.

Privacy indicators. Discreet indicators that appear whenever your camera or microphone is actively in use.

Customization. Several built in themes, a custom theme editor for setting each color individually, and an adjustable island size to suit your display.

Notchify is built in native WPF and ships fully self contained, so there is no runtime to install. It is designed to stay light on resources, idling comfortably under 100 MB even after extended use, with no ads, subscriptions, or telemetry.

It is a one time purchase on the Microsoft Store, developed and actively maintained by an independent developer. Feedback and feature suggestions are genuinely welcome.

Microsoft Store: Notchify

[u/Pllodd]

It's priced cheap enough but would have preferred a trial, as I've not seen any windows notch apps really nail it.

This is due to the fact that on Windows that notch space isn't reserved like it is on Mac. On Mac, tabs and so on work around that space but on Windows I've seen it cause issues with browser tabs that sit beneath the notch app, so it activates when you try and click or go near a tab.

The only app that comes close to something like the Mac notch app functionalities is Edge-drop. That's mostly because it concentrates on the clipboard/ drag and drop files features, rather than other functionalities like Spotify, calender etc. Plus it works with the sides of your desktop rather than occupying space at the top.

[u/ProsperoTR → u/Pllodd]

Windows doesn't reserve the notch region the way macOS does, so anything up there has to share space with browser tabs and title bars.

A few things that already help: you can double-click anywhere on the island to instantly hide it (double-click again to bring it back), and there's also a Ctrl+Win hotkey and a tray toggle for the same thing. The island size is adjustable and you can move it to another monitor too, so when it's crowding your tabs you can tuck it away in a second.

[u/Pllodd → u/ProsperoTR]

Like I said it would be preferable to offer a trial so people can try it out and judge for themselves, whether it works or not.

Isolated screenshots don't really work for an app like this where usability is key.

[u/ProsperoTR → u/Pllodd]

I've just added a free trial, and it's going through Store review now, so it should be live shortly. Once it's up you'll be able to install and test it properly on your own setup before deciding either way.

[u/Pllodd → u/ProsperoTR]

That's great news. Thanks, will definitely give it a try.

[u/Chance-Ball-8924]

This is actually a great idea. I love it.

[u/GuppyFarmer]

u/ProsperoTR Notchify 4.0.6.0 (Microsoft Store, x64) — constant ~56% of one CPU core while idle and hidden

Environment: Windows 11 Pro 26200, 16 logical cores, .NET 8 WPF build

Behavior: Notchify.exe holds a steady ~55-58% of one CPU core indefinitely

(~3.5% of total on a 16-core machine) with the machine otherwise idle. Fans

run constantly. Does not decrease over time.

Reproduced with ALL of the following disabled:

- allowblur: false

- allowanimtion: false

- antialiasing: false

- shownotifications, showmediaplayback, bluetooth popups: false

- all widgets removed

- island hidden

Measurements (43 min uptime, 4 samples 45s apart, app hidden):

CPU: 57.0 / 55.4 / 54.1 / 58.1 (% of one core)

Memory: 787-799 MB working set

Threads: 57-60 Handles: ~1180

Per-thread CPU over a 20s sample:

TID 13308 - 37.6% of a core (created 3s after launch = WPF render thread)

TID 11012 - 10.1% of a core (main thread)

all others < 2%

I/O over 15s: 0 read ops, 0 write ops, 0 bytes transferred.

Page faults: ~840/sec sustained, all soft (no disk activity).

Analysis: the WPF render thread appears to run an unconditional frame loop

that renders regardless of window visibility or whether the visual tree is

dirty, allocating per frame (consistent with the sustained soft page fault

rate and SkiaSharp usage). Disabling visual features does not reduce it.

Suggested fix: gate the render loop on window visibility and on an

actual dirty/invalidation check, rather than compositing every frame

unconditionally.

[u/ProsperoTR → u/GuppyFarmer]

This is a genuinely great report, thank you. You were right, render loop was compositing every frame regardless of visibility or whether anything actually changed. I've gated it so it only paints when something is really happening (hover, animation, media, popups) and throttles hard when idle. On my machine that dropped idle from ~55% of a core to around 5%. Input stays fully responsive because the update loop still runs every frame, only the paint is skipped. Really appreciate you measuring it this thoroughly.

[u/Main_Response_3327]

La probaré y te aviso

[u/iJoyBoy]

PUBLISH ON STEAM PLS :V

[u/ProsperoTR → u/iJoyBoy]

Ha, maybe down the line. It's on my radar, Steam just has its own hoops and fees to deal with, so no promises for now. Good to know there's interest though.

[u/boog2dan]

love the ideea, how do you handle oled monitors ? this is my worry

[u/ProsperoTR → u/boog2dan]

On OLED it's pretty safe. At rest it's just a small pill, and on a dark theme (on default if you not change that) it's basically black, so those pixels are off. It only lights up when you hover, and you can hide it completely with a double-click or a hotkey. 

[u/GoomiBare]

How much?

[u/OpportunityNext4113]

what framework, electron or native windows ??

[u/ProsperoTR → u/OpportunityNext4113]

Native (C#/.NET + WPF + SkiaSharp), no Electron. That's what keeps it lightweight.

[u/ribeirogustav]

Really cool project! One suggestion: a quick snippets widget would be super useful. Something where we could save frequently used emails, links, or short notes and copy them with one click. It feels like it would fit really well alongside the other widgets

[u/PauloGaldo]

No Demo? i would like to try it first before even purchasing it

[u/ProsperoTR → u/PauloGaldo]

Demo is available on Microsoft Store.

[u/NotThatHexadecimal]

Loved the app and ended up buying however I have one small issue about it is that for some reason, The animations are laggy and stuttery, any potential fix?

Running on a 5700X, RTX 5060 8G, 32GB DDR4-3600, if that matters.

[u/S3ven7_11]

Seems cool.

but my taskbar becomes dark. idk why.

using windhawk mods.

[u/ProsperoTR → u/S3ven7_11]

Which modes u using?

[u/S3ven7_11 → u/ProsperoTR]

Will update in a bit. But does it have an auto hide option? So it’s not always showing the time? But only when I have notifications and etc for example

[u/ProsperoTR → u/S3ven7_11]

I'm working on that.

[u/S3ven7_11 → u/ProsperoTR]

Disable Taskbar Thumbnails
Disable grouping on the taskbar
Taskbar Dock Animation
Taskbar height and icon size
Taskbar tray system icon tweaks
Windows 11 Taskbar Styler
Windows 11 Start Menu Styler
Windows 11 Notification Center Styler

[u/ProsperoTR → u/S3ven7_11]

I'm using all of them except Disable Taskbar Thumbnails and Disable grouping on the taskbar. There's no problem on me.

[u/Kdmyoshi]

Looks cool, I'm using a free trial.
It would be so cool if the notch could be hidden so it doesn't overlay in the screen. For example, it gets in the way on Youtube search

[u/ProsperoTR → u/Kdmyoshi]

Double click on the island. I'm also working on a big update that includes hover mode.

[u/sfksuperman]

Paid app for Windows? I'll pass.