Notty

A minimal, fast menu bar notepad for macOS.
About · Install · CLI · Features · Build

About

Notty is a lightweight notepad that lives in your macOS menu bar. Click the icon, type your thoughts, close it. Your notes are always there, always saved, always one click away.

No Dock icon. No window management. No bloat. Just a fast, dark, floating panel with a monospace editor that stays out of your way until you need it.

It also comes with a CLI — add notes straight from your terminal with nt or notty.

Built with pure Swift and AppKit — no Xcode, no SwiftUI, no dependencies. Compiled with a single make command.

Install

Homebrew

brew tap NovationLabs/notty
brew install notty

This installs both the menu bar app and the nt / notty CLI commands.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/NovationLabs/Notty.git
cd Notty
make
make run

To install the CLI commands globally:

make install

Requirements: macOS + Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install).

CLI

Both nt and notty are aliases to the same binary. Use whichever you prefer.

nt hello world              # Add a note
nt list                     # Display all notes
nt clear                    # Clear all notes (with confirmation)
nt                          # Launch the menu bar app
nt help                     # Show help

Notes added via CLI are instantly visible in the menu bar panel.

Features

#	Feature	Status
1	Menu bar icon (folder/folder.fill)	✅
2	Dark floating panel	✅
3	Monospace text editor	✅
4	Auto-save to ~/.notty.txt	✅
5	Corner resize	✅
6	Works over fullscreen apps	✅
7	Visible on all Spaces	✅
8	CLI (nt / notty)	✅
9	Keyboard shortcuts	❌
10	Multiple notes / tabs	❌
11	Markdown preview	❌

How it works

Notty runs as a macOS accessory app (LSUIElement) — no Dock icon, no Cmd+Tab entry. It places a small folder icon in the menu bar. Click it to open a floating panel, click anywhere else to close it. The icon switches to folder.fill when the panel is open.

Notes are persisted to ~/.notty.txt on every keystroke. There is no save button. There is no file picker. It just works.

The same binary handles both GUI and CLI — if you pass arguments, it runs in terminal mode. No arguments launches the menu bar app.

Stack

• Language: Swift
• Framework: AppKit (Cocoa)
• Build: swiftc via Makefile
• Dependencies: None
• Font: Space Mono (fallback: system monospace)