TickerNotch

Install and guide

Download and open

Quickest path: get it on the Mac App Store. One click, and updates arrive through the store. In the EU, where the store listing isn't available, or if you prefer a direct copy: download the DMG and drag TickerNotch.app to your /Applications folder. It's signed and notarised by Apple, so it opens on the first try. No right-click, no Gatekeeper warning. Homebrew users can run brew install --cask bitvibelabs/tap/tickernotch instead. You need macOS 14 Sonoma or later. It looks best on a MacBook with the hardware notch. If your Mac doesn't have one, or you're on an external display, turn on simulated-notch mode in Settings.

First run

Launch TickerNotch and your tickers and news show up in the notch right away. It lives in the menu bar with no Dock icon and no window to manage. You get the full version free for 7 days. After that the free version keeps running, no card needed.

Fill your strip

Open Settings, then Strip. One search box takes everything: type a symbol for a stock, index, ETF, future or coin, a city for weather, or a handle for a social counter. Results are grouped so you pick what you meant. The notch mark next to each slot decides what shows on the strip, and the pin next to it puts that slot in your menu bar. Drag to reorder. Anything you change takes effect right away, no restart.

Weather and social counters

A weather slot tracks one measure for one place: temperature now, today's high and low, feels like, chance of rain, rain so far, UV or wind. Add the same city twice for two measures. Units are yours: °C or °F, km/h or mph, mm or inches. A social slot shows a live count from YouTube, GitHub, Twitch, Bluesky or Mastodon, refreshed every 15 minutes, and dims itself when a reading gets old rather than pretending it's current.

Your Mac's own numbers

Two rows come with the app rather than being searched for: CPU load with memory used, and network download with upload. They start hidden so nobody's strip changes uninvited, and the notch mark turns them on like any other slot. Both are read on your own machine. There is no temperature or fan speed, on purpose: those need private Apple interfaces, and this app uses none.

News on one side or both

News scrolls on one flank and your strip on the other by default. In Settings, then News, you can turn the strip side into a second news lane with its own channels, so finance runs on the left and anything you like on the right. A strip with no tickers at all is fine too, which makes TickerNotch a pure news, weather and social bar for people who don't follow markets.

Menu bar pins

Any slot can also live in the menu bar. Click the pin next to it in Settings, then Strip, and it becomes its own menu bar item with the live value: the price and today's move for a ticker, the reading for weather, the count for a social handle. Click a pinned item and a panel opens with the detail behind it, a mini chart with the day's high and low, every reading for a weather place, or the count with the time it last updated. Free includes one pin, Pro pins as many as you like. macOS hides menu bar items when the bar runs out of room, which happens sooner beside the notch.

Read the strip

Each ticker is badged Live where the data source is live and Delayed where it isn't. The grid sizes itself to the notch, so fewer tickers means bigger text. The daily percentage resets at midnight in your own timezone, wherever you are.

Holdings and P&L Pro

Tell TickerNotch what you hold: a quantity and an entry price per ticker, long or short. The notch then shows the dollar profit or loss on that position instead of the daily percent. The expanded panel keeps the daily move and adds your average cost and current value.

Charts Pro

Click a ticker's chart in the expanded panel and a full candlestick chart opens in its own window, near the bottom of the screen so it stays clear of the notch. Resize it, move it, leave it open. You can have several open at once, one per ticker. Indicators include moving averages, Bollinger Bands, RSI, MACD, Supertrend and Volume Profile. Timeframes run from 1 minute to 1 day.

Alerts

In Settings, then Alerts, set an alert on a ticker. There are two kinds. A % move alert fires when the price moves at least the percent you pick, measured either over a rolling window or from the daily open. A price alert fires when the price crosses a level you set, rising above it or falling below it. Either way you get a Mac notification, and clicking it opens that ticker's chart. An alert fires once per move rather than repeating while the price sits past your threshold. TickerNotch has to be running for an alert to fire. Free covers one alert. Pro is unlimited.

Free vs Pro

Free, forever: one ticker, one weather slot, one social counter, one news channel, one alert and one menu bar pin. Pro shows everything at once and adds holdings P&L, the chart windows, the second news lane, unlimited alerts and unlimited pins.

Troubleshooting

• No notch on your Mac, or you're on an external display: turn on simulated-notch mode in Settings.
• A ticker stuck on Delayed: that source is delayed, the app is fine.
• An alert never fires: check that TickerNotch is running, that you allowed notifications when it asked, and that the move is big enough inside the window you set.

Help and support

The full user guide goes through every part of the app: the four slot types, holdings, the news lanes, layout and calibration, alerts, and the chart indicators. Read that first.

Read the full user guide

Anything it doesn't answer, email [email protected]. Find a real bug and report it and you get at least a month of Pro free. Bigger finds earn more.

TickerNotch shows market data for information only. It isn't financial advice, and prices can be delayed or differ from official sources.