How to get a Dynamic Island on your Mac

The Dynamic Island on iPhone turned a camera cut-out into the most useful spot on the screen. Your MacBook has the same kind of cut-out, the notch, but macOS doesn’t do anything with it. The menu bar just splits around it.

You can change that with a notch app. This guide shows how to get a Dynamic Island–style experience on a Mac with peeq, which is free during its beta.

Does the Mac have a Dynamic Island?

No. Apple hasn’t added a Dynamic Island to the Mac. The notch on MacBook Pro (2021 and later) and MacBook Air (M2 and later) only houses the camera. Third-party apps can draw over it, though, because the area around the notch is part of the screen.

What you need

A MacBook with a notch: MacBook Pro 14″ or 16″ from 2021 onwards, or MacBook Air from M2 onwards.
macOS 15 Sequoia or later. On macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence you also get reply suggestions.
About two minutes.

Set it up in three steps

Get the beta. Join the testlist. When your spot opens, we email you the build. Drag peeq into your Applications folder.
Open it once. The beta isn’t notarized yet, so macOS asks you to confirm. Go to System Settings › Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. (Why that happens.)
Take the tour. peeq opens right in the notch with a short tour. It asks for each permission only when a feature needs it, so you can skip what you don’t use.

What your Mac’s island can do

Once peeq is running, the notch reacts to what’s happening:

Music: album art on one side of the notch and a moving level on the other. Click for the full player.
Calls: a FaceTime or iPhone call rings in the notch with Accept and Decline.
Messages: notifications arrive in the notch; reply to Messages or WhatsApp without switching apps.
Timers: a ring counts down beside the notch.
Screenshots: a preview drops out with Copy, Save, Markup and Delete.
Files: drag files onto the notch to hold them, then AirDrop them.

Click the notch when nothing is happening and it opens Home: your music, a timer, recent activity and clipboard history.

Tips

Swipe on the notch. With two fingers on the trackpad, swipe sideways over the music player to skip, or over a running timer to add or remove a minute. Swipe up to tuck things away.
Pull the player out. Drag the music card down and it becomes a small floating player you can park anywhere.
Keep notifications in one place. In Settings › General, turn on Only in peeq and banners show in the notch instead of the corner.

Is it safe?

peeq has no account, no analytics and no servers. It reads notification banners through Accessibility because macOS offers no other way, and it never stores that text anywhere but a private folder on your Mac, cleared the next day. Every permission is explained here.