Media
Artwork, title and controls for whatever is playing. The visualizer takes its color from the album art.
System Media Transport Controls
The notch Windows never had.
Dynamic Notch puts a small black island at the top of your screen. Music, timers, downloads, dictation and AI live inside it. It grows when something happens and gets out of the way when nothing does.
Free and open source. Windows 10 and 11, x64 and ARM64.
Small until something happens.
The notch moves between four sizes with the same spring physics the app uses. Scroll to step through them.
-
1
Rests
A 188 by 32 pixel notch at the top of your main monitor. Hover it and it leans toward your cursor. It hides for fullscreen games, videos and presentations.
-
2
Lives
When music plays or a timer runs, the notch widens just enough to show it: album art and a visualizer, or a countdown ring. A second live activity gets its own bubble.
-
3
Peeks
Events slide out for about three seconds. A finished download, a plugged-in charger, Caps Lock, a new track. Click a peek to open what it's about.
-
4
Opens
Hover, click or press Ctrl Alt N for the full panel on frosted glass. It closes as soon as your mouse leaves.
188 × 32 px
Twelve modules, one place for them.
Each module is a single Rust file that sleeps until Windows tells it something changed. Hover or tap one to try it in the notch at the top of this page.
Timer
Timers and a stopwatch, with a countdown ring in the notch. Ctrl Alt T starts one.
Ticks only while running
Downloads
Browser downloads with size and speed, and a peek when they finish. Open the file or its folder from there.
ReadDirectoryChangesW
Clipboard
Your recent copies: text, links, files and images. Click one to copy it again.
Memory only, skips password managers
Shelf
Drop files on the notch to park them, then drag them out into any folder or app later.
OLE drag and drop
Dictation
Hold Ctrl Alt D and speak. The text is typed into the app you were using.
WASAPI capture, Whisper on Groq
Ask AI
A quick prompt on Ctrl Alt Space, with streamed answers and follow-ups.
OpenRouter, any model
Mic and camera
A green or orange dot whenever an app is using your microphone or camera, and a peek naming it.
Windows capability consent store
Ports
Local dev servers on localhost as they start, each with an Open button.
TCP listener table
Lock keys
A short peek when Caps Lock, Num Lock or Scroll Lock changes, so you stop typing in capitals.
Raw keyboard input
Battery
Level and charging state in the header, with peeks for plugged in, unplugged, low and full.
WM_POWERBROADCAST
Claude Code
Tells you when Claude finishes or needs you. Click the peek to bring its terminal back.
Stop and Notification hooks
Your scripts can use it too.
Run the exe again while the notch is running and it hands the command to the running notch. Put it at the end of a build, a render or a backup.
Know when Claude is done.
Add dynamic-notch claude as a Stop and Notification hook in Claude Code. It stays quiet while you're looking at the terminal Claude runs in, and peeks when you're not. Clicking the peek brings that terminal to the front.
"hooks": {
"Stop": [{ "hooks": [{
"type": "command",
"command": "dynamic-notch claude"
}] }],
"Notification": [{ "hooks": [{
"type": "command",
"command": "dynamic-notch claude"
}] }]
}Zero CPU while it waits.
Written in Rust on the Windows compositor. Nothing is drawn unless something changes, and the visualizer is animated by the compositor itself, so music costs no CPU either.
- Visualizeranimated by the compositor
- ContentDirect2D, composition swap chain
- Backdrop blurHostBackdropBrush
- Your desktopwhatever is behind the notch
- Idle CPU
- 0 ms per 10 s
- Memory
- 25 MB private, idle
- Download
- 1 MB no runtime needed
- Startup
- 0.35 s to first frame
Measured on an ARM64 laptop at 4K and 150% scaling, release build.
Frames only while it moves.
This graph counts the frames drawn by the notches on this page, which work the same way as the app. Hover the notch at the top, then watch it fall back to zero.
Frames per second0
Set up in a minute.
-
Download
Get the x64 or ARM64 zip from the latest release and unzip it anywhere, or build it yourself with
cargo build --release. -
Run it
The notch appears at the top of your main monitor. Right-click it, or use the tray icon, to pick modules, a monitor and autostart.
-
Add keys, if you want AI
Ask AI uses
OPENROUTER_API_KEYand dictation usesGROQ_API_KEY. Put them in a.envfile. They are never written to the config.
%APPDATA%\DynamicNotch\config.toml
[general]
monitor = "primary" # or "active", 1, 2…
expand_on_hover = true
idle_style = "notch" # "pill" | "hidden"
[appearance]
blur = true
bounce = 0.3 # spring overshoot
accent = "auto" # from album art
[hotkeys]
toggle = "Ctrl+Alt+N"
ai = "Ctrl+Alt+Space"
dictate = "Ctrl+Alt+D"Changes apply as soon as you save the file.
Questions
Will it run on my PC?
It needs Windows 10 version 1903 or later. Windows 11 is recommended for the frosted glass. x64 and ARM64 both work, and there is nothing else to install.
Will it get in the way of games?
No. The notch hides when a game, video or presentation goes fullscreen, and it doesn't draw anything while it's idle.
Where are my API keys kept?
Only in an environment variable or a .env file next to the exe or in %APPDATA%\DynamicNotch. They are never stored in the config. AI and dictation are optional; everything else works without a key.
Does my clipboard history leave my computer?
No. It's kept in memory only, cleared when you quit, and items that password managers mark as sensitive are skipped.
Can I add my own module?
Yes. Implement the Module trait in Rust and add it to modules::all(). A module can show a live activity, peeks, a home card and its own tab.
What does it cost?
Nothing. Dynamic Notch is open source under the MIT license.