HopnotchApple silicon, macOS 14 and later
Know your
notchbors.
Mission Control Spaces are invisible until you are already standing in one. Hopnotch puts them either side of your notch, so you always know where your apps live.
No account, no card. The trial is the whole app.- Signed with an Apple Developer ID
- Checked by Apple
- Opens with no security warning
Try it here
Six Spaces. Click one and hop.
This is the strip itself, running the same layout the app draws: the Spaces either side of you, a hard notch between them, and never more than two pills a side.
Your Spaces, finally visible.
macOS lets you have as many Spaces as you like and then hides every one of them. So you swipe, guess, overshoot, and swipe back. Or you open Mission Control, which covers the very screen you were trying to read.
Glance instead of guessing
The pills on each side name the Spaces next to you and show the apps living on them. Those two strips of menu bar beside the notch were never any use for anything else, and they happen to sit exactly where your eyes already are when you have lost track of a window.
See it before you go
Hover a pill and the Space itself appears underneath it, so you are not committing to a guess. Pills also show when a Space is using your microphone or camera, or playing sound, which turns the usual hunt for whatever is making noise into a look.
Hop straight there
Click a pill or press a hotkey and you land on that Space directly, with no three finger fishing and no counting swipes. Hold the hotkey instead and every Space fans out at once, with the one you are standing on ringed.
Spotlight finds them
Give a Space a name and it becomes searchable. Type that name into Spotlight and you land on the Space itself, without touching the strip or remembering where it sits in the order.
Your own shortcuts
Set the keys that suit you. Step to the pill on your left or right, hold to fan out the whole map and pick from it, or hide the strip entirely. Scrolling two fingers over the notch works too, if you would rather not learn a shortcut at all.
Colour-code them
Each Space can carry its own accent colour. Make work red and music green and you stop reading the pills at all, because you are navigating by colour from the corner of your eye.
Stays out of your way
Clicks pass straight through it. No Dock icon, no window, nothing stealing focus, and it sits in two strips of menu bar that were never any use for anything else. It is a readout, not another app competing for your attention.
Live previews
Hover a pill and see the Space itself, so you know what you are hopping to before you go. Captures live in memory only, never touch your disk, expire after ten minutes and are wiped the instant your screen locks. Off until you switch them on.
Find the mic that is still on
Pills show when a Space is using your microphone or camera, or playing sound. The meeting you forgot to leave, or the tab making noise, stops being a hunt through every Space you have open.
Make it yours.
This thing sits in your menu bar all day, so it should look like something you chose rather than something you installed. Almost every part of it can be changed.
Each is a scene in its own right. Departures boards, canyons, lanterns, wind farms, koi ponds, arcades. Click through a few under the demo above and watch the whole strip change character.
Dark, colour, gradient, glass, outline, neon, holo, duotone, stripe and ember. Set the opacity too, so the strip can sit quietly rather than announce itself.
Pills can bubble, drop, flip, spin, cascade, scatter, stamp, swing or swirl into place. Or fade, if you would rather they did not move at all.
Your names, your colours
Rename a Space to whatever you actually call it, and give it an accent so you navigate by colour instead of reading.
Little touches
Compact pills when you want icons only, a fuller bar when you want presence, and small roaming pets if you like your menu bar with a bit of life in it.
Every theme is its own thing.
Fifty-one of them, and none is another one in a different colour. Each has its own artwork and its own way of moving, so the one you settle on genuinely looks like nothing else.
The other 42 are in Settings
They are grouped by mood rather than listed alphabetically, so finding the one you want is a glance instead of a scroll through fifty names. Pick one and the whole strip changes at once.
Then take it apart. A theme is a starting point rather than a fixed preset: the background style, the pill style, both colours, both opacities and the way pills animate in are all yours to change — which is why the panel here reads edited from a theme. Save what you end up with under your own name and it joins the gallery beside the built-in ones.
The three day trial is the whole app, so you can try every one of them, on your own Spaces, before you decide anything.
It will not eat your battery.
Menu bar apps have earned their reputation here, so this one is built the other way round. Scenes stop drawing altogether once you stop looking at them, and wake again the moment you need them.
Hi friend!
I built Hopnotch because I kept losing my own windows. Ten Spaces open, no idea which one had the app I needed, and Mission Control was inconvenient and a temporary fix. I decided to do something about it, which has now turned into this.
I am a solo developer, which means that there are no support queues and no ticket numbers. If you email [email protected] it comes to me, and I answer it!
It also means the three day trial is not a formality. Use the whole app, on your own Spaces, before you decide anything. If it does not earn its place in your menu bar, do not buy it :)
Simple pricing.
Three days free, no card. Then whichever of these annoys you less.
Trial Start here
The whole app, every theme, on up to three Macs. No account and no card — it simply stops after three days.
Checked by Apple
A 3 MB disk image. Drag it to Applications and open it once.
Lifetime Best value
Every future update, on up to three Macs — yours, or your family's or a friend's. Nothing to cancel.
Checked by Apple
Lemon Squeezy handles the payment. Your key arrives by email right after.
Monthly Month to month
If you would rather not commit yet. The same app on the same three Macs, shared the same way, cancel any time.
Checked by Apple
Lemon Squeezy handles the payment. Your key arrives by email right after.
Fourteen days to change your mind — email me and I refund it, no argument.
What happens when you click download.
No account, no installer that asks you questions, and nothing left behind if you decide it is not for you.
- 1
Drag it across
The disk image opens with Hopnotch beside your Applications folder. Drag it over and eject the image.
- 2
Open it once
It goes straight to the menu bar beside your notch. No Dock icon, no window to arrange, nothing taking focus.
- 3
That is the whole setup
Three days start immediately. Live previews are the one thing that asks a permission, and only if you switch them on.
Questions worth asking.
Which Macs does it work on?
Any Apple silicon Mac running macOS 14 or later. It is built around the notch, so it is happiest on a Mac that has one:
- MacBook Pro 14″ and 16″, 2021 and later
- MacBook Air 13″ with M2, 2022 and later
- MacBook Air 15″ with M2, 2023 and later
It runs on Apple silicon desktops and external displays too. Where there is no notch to split it around, the strip simply sits in the menu bar as one piece. Intel Macs are not supported.
Which versions of macOS?
| macOS | Status |
|---|---|
| 26 Tahoe | Supported, and the main development target |
| 15 Sequoia | Supported |
| 14 Sonoma | Supported, the minimum |
| 13 and earlier | Will not launch |
Is it signed and checked by Apple?
Yes. Hopnotch is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized, which means Apple has scanned the exact build you download for malicious software and issued it a ticket. It is a security check rather than a review — nobody at Apple approves what the app does — but it is the check that makes it open normally, with no warning and no right-click-to-open workaround.
Updates are held to the same standard. Every one is checked against a signing key built into the app before it installs, so even if this website were compromised, nothing unsigned could reach you.
What permissions does it need?
Hopnotch never asks for Accessibility. Shortcuts run through Carbon and ordinary event monitors, and an app that watches your Spaces has no business asking to control your computer.
Screen Recording is the one permission it may ask for, and only if you switch live previews on. Leave them off and macOS never prompts.
What does it send over the network?
Two things, and you can inspect both: a daily check for updates, and a license check when you activate and at most once a week after that. No analytics, no telemetry, no account.
During the trial the license check never happens, because there is no license to check yet. The update check is the only request the app makes before you buy anything. The privacy page lists every byte.
How many Macs does one license cover?
Three, and they do not all have to be yours. Put it on your own machines, or give a slot to family or a friend — the license covers three Macs however you choose to spread them.
You use the same key on each one, and any Mac can be deactivated from its own settings to free the slot up for someone else.
Can I get a refund?
Within 14 days, no argument. Email [email protected] and it comes straight to me. The three day trial is the full app though, so hopefully you will know before you pay.
Stop guessing where your windows went.
Three days, free, nothing to sign up for.