Questions, answered.

peeq is a free Mac app that turns the notch on your MacBook into a small, living space. Music, calls, notifications, timers, screenshots and files show up in the notch and go back in when you’re done. Think of it as a Dynamic Island for your Mac.

peeq needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later and is made for a MacBook with a notch (MacBook Pro 14″ and 16″ from 2021, MacBook Air from M2). External displays aren’t supported yet. Reply suggestions also need macOS 26 and Apple Intelligence.

peeq is in a private beta. Join the testlist and we’ll email you a build when your spot opens. We’re inviting testers in small batches.

Yes. The beta is free for testers. There’s no account, no trial and no ads.

Those apps aim to do a lot: widgets, calendars, weather, shortcuts and deep customisation. peeq does less on purpose. It covers the things you reach for every day (music, calls, messages, timers, screenshots, files) and stays out of the way the rest of the time. Read the full comparison.

That’s the idea. Like the Dynamic Island on iPhone, peeq uses the black cut-out at the top of the screen as a home for live activity: what’s playing, who’s calling, how long is left on a timer. It’s designed for the Mac, with a click-to-open Home, a file tray and trackpad swipes.

Apple Music and Spotify work directly. Browser tabs (like YouTube) and most other apps work through macOS’s Now Playing. You can play, pause, skip, scrub, change the volume, and see Up Next for Apple Music.

No. peeq has no account, no analytics and no servers of its own. Today’s notifications and clipboard are kept in a private folder on your Mac so they survive a restart, and are cleared the next day. peeq only goes online to download album artwork and website icons. Read the privacy policy.

Yes, for Messages and WhatsApp, and for other apps whose notification banners offer a Reply button. On macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence, peeq suggests three short replies using Apple’s on-device model, so the message never leaves your Mac.

macOS has no public way for an app to read notification banners or call alerts, so peeq reads them through Accessibility, the same way assistive tools do, and presses their own buttons (like Accept or Reply). It’s also used if you choose to replace macOS’s volume overlay. Every permission, explained.

The beta is signed but not yet notarized by Apple, so macOS shows a warning the first time. Click Done, open System Settings › Privacy & Security, scroll down and click Open Anyway. You only do this once. How to open the beta.

No. Measured on an M-series MacBook, peeq uses about 0.3 % CPU and 37 MB of memory when idle, with no background wake-ups. Animations run on Core Animation, and everything pauses while the display sleeps or the screen is locked.

Not at the moment. Reading notification banners and call alerts needs Accessibility, which App Store apps aren’t allowed to use this way. During the beta, testers get peeq directly from us.

One, and it’s optional. Showing what’s playing in any app or browser uses macOS’s system Now Playing through a small open-source helper (mediaremote-adapter, BSD-3). You can turn it off in Settings › General, and Apple Music, Spotify and browser tabs still work. Everything else uses public macOS APIs.

We email testers each new build. Replace the copy in your Applications folder and your settings stay. The changelog lists what changed.

Quit peeq from its menu bar icon, then drag peeq from Applications to the Bin. To remove its saved history too, delete the folder ~/Library/Application Support/peeq.

Open peeq’s menu bar icon and choose Report a Problem. It saves a zip to your Desktop with a diagnostics log (it never contains message text, song names or clipboard contents). Email it to [email protected] or send a DM to @peeq.space.