Can't Get Used to Your MacBook Pro's Notch? These Apps Will Hide It for You

If you bought a new MacBook Pro and find yourself having a hard time acclimatizing to the notch at the top of the screen in the middle of the menu bar, there's an app for that.

The inclusion of a display notch on the redesigned MacBook Pros was a surprise to most observers and was one of the few last-minute rumors that surfaced ahead of their unveiling.

Some have since criticized Apple's design choice of adding a notch, but Apple has pushed back against criticism by saying that it's a "smart way" of giving users more room for their content, because it allowed the bezels to be made thinner for added screen real estate.

If that logic doesn't pass your scrutiny, the following apps are available. While they don't outright cancel the notch, they at least make its existence less obvious by forcing a black menu bar, similar to how macOS Monterey adds a black black bezel to the top of the display when apps are in fullscreen mode, but by adapting your chosen wallpaper instead, like so.

Forehead (free): Besides letting you switch between your default wallpaper and a black notchless one, Forehead includes options to round the corners of the screen, similar to the rounded top corners of the new MacBook Pros. The ability to simulate a notch on older Macs is coming in an update.

TopNotch (free): Offers the same features as Forehead, and also supports Dynamic Wallpapers, works with multiple displays and spaces, and remains in the background and detects for wallpaper changes.

De-Notch-ifier (€9.95): Offers the same features as TopNotch, just in the form of a dropdown menu in the menu bar. De-Notch-ifier isn't a completely new app, rather a pre-configured version of Boring Old Menu Bar that gives you a boring old non-transparent menu bar on macOS Big Sur and later. If you buy one app, you get the other for free.

Own a new MacBook Pro? What do you think of the notch now that you've spent some time with it? Let us know in the comments.

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This article, "Can't Get Used to Your MacBook Pro's Notch? These Apps Will Hide It for You" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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