BlogRelease notes4 October 20264 min read

What's new in NotchDude 1.9

Update, 7 October 2026: In NotchDude 1.11.3, screenshot previews moved to the bottom-right corner and stay above app windows. The article and image below describe the original 1.9 layout; the same quick actions are still available.

This update is about the things you grab and pass on all day: screenshots and files. Every screenshot now gets a thumbnail under the notch with the actions you actually use, new screenshots can land on the File Shelf by themselves, and dropping files on the notch lets you zip, merge, or AirDrop them on the way in. Here's what changed and how to use it.

A screenshot thumbnail with your own actions

Take a screenshot and a thumbnail appears just below the notch. Hover it and it splits into four zones. Out of the box they're:

• Copy: puts the screenshot on the clipboard, ready to paste into a chat or a document.
• Keep: puts it on the File Shelf.
• AirDrop: opens the AirDrop picker.
• More: everything else, such as Open in Preview to mark it up, Copy Text, Cut Out, To JPEG, and Zip.

You choose the four in Settings › Files › Thumbnail actions: click a zone in the little preview and pick what it does. If you'd rather have Copy Text one click away, swap it in. You can still drag the thumbnail straight into any app, and if you ignore it, it fades after a few seconds and nothing else happens.

One tip: macOS shows its own floating thumbnail too, and holds the file back for about five seconds while it's up. To see only NotchDude's, press ⌘⇧5, click Options, and untick Show Floating Thumbnail. Screenshots then also save straight away.

Screenshots that file themselves

A new setting, Settings › Files › New screenshots, decides where screenshots go:

• Don't add: they stay where macOS saves them. Keep on the thumbnail puts one on the shelf.
• Add to shelf: every screenshot and screen recording goes on the shelf as soon as it's taken, and stays where macOS saved it too.
• Move to shelf: they move off your Desktop onto the shelf. Removing one puts it in the Trash, so nothing's lost by accident.

When screenshots are added automatically, the thumbnail doesn't offer Keep, because it's already done. Its zone shows Open instead. Screen recordings made with ⌘⇧5 follow the same setting, and the shelf offers quick actions for them. Catching new screenshots is in the version from notchdude.com.

Choose what happens as you drop

Drop files on the notch quickly and they're kept on the shelf, as before. Hold the drag there for a moment and the drop area splits into Keep plus the actions that suit what you're dragging:

• Several files or a folder: Zip.
• Several PDFs: Merge PDFs into one.
• Several images: Make PDF, one page each.
• A screenshot or image: Copy Text and Cut Out its subject.
• An iPhone HEIC photo: To JPEG.

AirDrop is always at the end, in the same spot. The actions you pick most move to the front, and anything you use from the shelf's right-click menu counts too. Hold Option while dragging to skip all of this and just keep. Everything runs on your Mac; nothing is uploaded.

More room on the shelf

Pro's File Shelf no longer stops at 20 items: keep as many as you like. The free shelf still holds 3. The shelf's right-click menu also gains Merge PDFs and Make PDF.

What's free and what's Pro

The thumbnail and drop zones are free, along with Keep, Copy, Open, Zip, and AirDrop. Copy Text, Cut Out, To JPEG, Merge PDFs, and Make PDF are Pro, and show a small crown on the free plan.

A cleaner look over bright apps

The open notch no longer casts a shadow, so it stays a crisp black shape over white windows instead of a grey haze, just like the notch itself. We also fixed the open notch staying dimmed after a drag was cancelled.

How to update

NotchDude checks for updates on its own. To update now, choose Check for Updates… from the menu bar icon or the notch's ··· menu. New here? Download NotchDude and every Pro feature is unlocked for your first 48 hours. The user guide covers the File Shelf in detail, What's new in NotchDude 1.8 covers the previous update, and the release notes list every version.