macOS Notch & Dynamic Island for Windows — Smart Ambient Desktop Experience
V-Notch brings the Apple Dynamic Island and macOS notch experience to your Windows PC.
A smart, interactive notch that presents live media controls, synced lyrics, Spotify Canvas, system hardware telemetry, audio mixing, Spotlight launcher, and notifications with fluid animations and realistic Liquid Glass optics.
100% compatible with MyDockFinder for an immersive desktop experience!
This project is entirely free and open-source.
If you enjoy using V-Notch and would like to support its continued development, you can donate via PayPal.
Visual showcase of V-Notch core features. UI elements and animations may evolve in newer releases.
 Media Pill macOS notch-style media pill — control Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, and more with real-time seeking progress, volume control, and dynamic album art colors. |
 Spotify Integration & Synced Lyrics Full Spotify playback integration with smart-cropped album art, color-adaptive gradients, real-time synced lyrics (LRCLIB & lrc mux), and Spotify Canvas video backgrounds. |
 File Shelf Drag & drop files onto the notch for quick temporary staging. Select with lasso or pick them up later to drop into any app. |
 Clipboard Peek & Notification Get immediate visual confirmation and content previews on the notch whenever you copy text or images to the clipboard. |
 Dynamic Island Mode Experience the signature Apple-style floating Dynamic Island on your Windows desktop. Enjoy fluid spring physics and realistic Liquid Glass optical refraction. |
 Privacy Indicators Instantly know when your camera, microphone, or screen recording is in use by any system application with subtle colored indicator dots. |
 Volume & Audio Mixer Color-adaptive master volume slider matching current album art, plus an integrated multi-app audio mixer to adjust individual application levels. |
 Camera Preview Live local camera mirror inside the notch — quickly check your appearance without opening separate software. Frames are never recorded or stored. |
 Gesture Controls Swipe left or right across the notch to skip or rewind media, scroll to switch views, or swipe down to immediately access the File Shelf. |
 Rich Customization & Settings Fine-tune notch dimensions, glass presets, monitor selection, auto-start behavior, hot corners, and 7 supported languages. |
 Spotlight Search ( Alt + Space)Lightning-fast application and file search powered by Windows Search and voidtools Everything IPC, complete with an inline math calculator. |
 Liquid Glass Optics Engine Real-time DirectX 11 screen sampling, chromatic aberration, rim specular highlights, edge refraction, and interactive touch light glow. |
- Control Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, SoundCloud, Tidal, TikTok/Reels, and any Windows Media Session (SMTC) source.
- High-precision progress tracking with smooth seeking, time elapsed, and time remaining.
- Real-time synced lyrics powered by LRCLIB and lrc mux fallback aggregator.
- Timed YouTube closed captions and subtitles via YoutubeExplode.
- Optional Spotify Canvas video background streaming (session encrypted locally with Windows DPAPI).
- On-device smart artwork cropping powered by local YOLO11n ONNX object detection (centers faces/subjects and removes banner borders).
- Dynamic color-adaptive gradients and glows extracted using HSL color analysis.
- Instant app launching for Start Menu shortcuts and installed Windows applications.
- File and folder search powered by local Windows Search (OLE DB) and voidtools Everything IPC.
- Built-in inline math evaluator for arithmetic and algebraic calculations using MathNet.Numerics.
- Intelligent local launch ranking (capped at 100 entries, stored 100% locally).
- Floating staging shelf for files — drag and drop items onto the notch for quick temporary storage.
- Multi-file lasso selection and keyboard shortcuts.
- Drag staged files out to any application (Windows Explorer, Discord, browser uploads, email clients).
- Live per-app audio mixer to independently adjust volume levels across active programs.
- Real-time hardware performance monitor displaying CPU usage %, physical RAM consumption, and GPU utilization.
- Real-time desktop backdrop sampling via DXGI Desktop Duplication and Windows Magnification API.
- Physically inspired optical refraction, chromatic aberration, bevel lighting, and edge bending.
- Interactive Touch Light reactive specular highlights and ambient overhead illumination.
- Digital and analog clock widgets with customizable greetings.
- Interactive monthly calendar and world clock.
- Configurable countdown timer and stopwatch with progress tracking.
- Weather forecast widget with temperature, daily highs/lows, and conditions via Open-Meteo.
- Real-time privacy dots for active microphone, webcam, and screen recording sensors.
- Bluetooth device connection notifications and accessory battery level monitoring.
- Clipboard change confirmation badge with optional preview.
- Fullscreen auto-hide (supports both exclusive and windowed fullscreen for games and media).
- Multi-monitor support — position the notch on any connected display.
- Multilingual support across 7 languages: English, Vietnamese, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Hindi with instantaneous live switching.
- Operating System: Windows 10 (version 19041+) or Windows 11 (64-bit)
- Runtime: .NET 8 Desktop Runtime or .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (or download the Self-Contained installer which includes the runtime)
- Hardware: Decent GPU recommended for hardware-accelerated Liquid Glass refraction and smooth 60–120 FPS animations.
- Download
V-Notch-Setup.exe(orV-Notch-Setup-SelfContained.exe) from Releases. - Run the installer and complete the Setup Wizard.
- Launch V-Notch from your Start Menu or desktop shortcut.
- (Optional) Enable "Start with Windows" in Settings.
To use the latest development build directly from GitHub Actions without waiting for an official release:
- Go to the Actions tab of this repository (or your fork).
- Select the Release Installer workflow and click Run workflow.
- Choose your desired build variant:
framework-dependent— smaller download, requires .NET Desktop Runtime.self-contained— standalone package, runs out-of-the-box without separate .NET installation.
- When the build completes, download the setup executable from the Artifacts section or the automated
nightlyrelease.
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Hover | Expands the notch to reveal media controls and widgets |
| Scroll Down | Switch to File Shelf view |
| Scroll Up | Switch back to Media Controls |
| Click / Tap | Toggle between compact pill and expanded view |
| Swipe Left / Right | Skip to next or previous audio track |
| Swipe Down | Quickly open the File Shelf |
Alt + Space |
Open or close the Spotlight Search launcher |
↑ / ↓, Enter, Esc |
Navigate search results, launch selected item, or dismiss Spotlight |
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Drag & Drop onto Notch | Stage files into the shelf |
| Lasso Drag (on empty area) | Select multiple staged files |
Ctrl + Click |
Toggle individual file selection |
| Drag Out | Move staged files into any destination app or directory |
Delete |
Remove selected items from the shelf |
V-Notch is built with a strict local-first architecture. It contains no telemetry, no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking identifiers.
Network communication is strictly limited to user-driven or functional features:
- GitHub Releases API — Checking for application updates.
- LRCLIB / lrc mux — Retrieving synchronized song lyrics for the current track.
- YouTube / SoundCloud — Fetching public thumbnails and captions.
- Spotify Web Services — Optional Spotify Canvas video background streaming (credentials protected with Windows DPAPI).
- Open-Meteo / ipwho.is — Optional weather forecast queries.
All user preferences, cache records, and launch statistics are stored locally on your machine at %APPDATA%\V-Notch\.
Read the complete Privacy Policy:
This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See the LICENSE file for details.
Developed with ❤️ by rainaku
