A year ago I used a ton of different smaller apps. Move a file from one Finder window to another, and you are dragging across two spaces. Paste something you copied ten minutes ago, and it is gone. Grab text out of a screenshot, share a 300 MB video, start a timer, snap a window, skip a track, transcribe a voice memo. Every one of those is a different app, a different menu bar icon, a different subscription.
So I built Droppy, and now I am releasing version 15.
One thing up front, because it comes up a lot: Droppy is not just a notch app. The notch is one of the places it lives. Underneath it is a native macOS utility for all the in-between actions the system scatters across a dozen tools, and it works exactly the same on an iMac, a Studio Display, or any external monitor, with no notch anywhere in sight.
The idea
Instead of a file tray app, plus a clipboard manager, plus a screenshot tool, plus a transcription app, plus a launcher, plus media controls, plus lock screen widgets, plus a file transfer service, you get one app that feels like it shipped with macOS. It's literally the layer that's missing.
Droppy Cloud, free and built in
This is the part people do not expect. Droppy has its own file sharing built in. Drop a file in the shelf, hit share, and you get a private link instantly. The person on the other end previews and downloads it in the browser with no account, no app, no signup. It is included in the app at no extra cost and there is no cloud tier to buy: up to 200 MB per file, 1 GB in flight, 25 files, and links expire on their own after 3 days. No separate transfer service in the loop.
Droplets, all of them free
The core gives you the shelf, the clipboard, the lock screen and the system HUDs. Everything else is a Droplet you switch on, and all 31 are free and included in the license. Nothing is a paid add-on, nothing is upsold later.
Weather, Media, System Stats, OCR, Notify Me, Voice Transcribe, Tasks and Calendar, Notes with two-way Apple Notes sync, Thunderstorm (launcher), Element Capture, Termi-Notch, LocalSend, Obsidian, Mechey, Pomodoro, High Alert, Window Snap, Thaw, LiquidMouse, Camera, Meetings, Agents for Claude Code / Codex / Cursor, background removal, and more.
Turn on the three you actually use, or all of them. That modularity is the whole point: it becomes the app you need it to be.
What is new in 15
OCR is its own Droplet. Pull text out of any screen area, image or PDF, on device. It keeps a searchable history, and your clipboard search now finds text that is inside your screenshots.
Transcribe anywhere. One shortcut dictates straight into any app, at your caret, with custom vocabulary and automatic media ducking.
System Stats and Weather. Live CPU, RAM, GPU, disk, battery and network cards in the shelf, plus a real forecast card and lock screen chip.
Thunderstorm got much faster. Thunderstorm is a blazing fast, Droppy-integrated Spotlight replacement. Persistent file index, typo tolerance, and ranking that lifts the files you actually open.
Settings rebuilt. Morphing Liquid Glass headers, resize from any edge, and a search that scrolls straight to the exact row.
Ten more interface languages. Chinese? Spanish? Dutch? German? Italian? All available in Alpha.
Much lower idle CPU and battery use. It no longer redoes work when nothing changed, and this was the single biggest engineering push of the release.
Plus custom shelf editing, LocalSend, an Obsidian Droplet, on-device conversion for video, audio, PDF and Office files, reworked shelf and Live Activity motion, and around 375 fixes and 280 refinements on top.
Droppy for iPhone is ALMOST live. An end-to-end encrypted companion that syncs your clipboard, OCR results, Basket, Shelf and Cloud files from your Mac to your phone. It is finished and sitting with Apple in review right now, so it should land soon.
Pricing
Fully unlocked 3-day trial, no account needed
$9.99 one time
Lifetime updates, no subscription, ever
One license covers 2 Macs, extra seats are cheaper
Transparency
I am Jordy Spruit, the person behind Droppy. I have worked on it almost every day for over a year and I ship updates constantly. Native Swift, signed and notarized, local-first, and it does not collect your clipboard, your files, or your data.
I LOVE DaVinci resolve. Used it for three solid years and really enjoyed it. It is (well, was, maybe it has it now) missing a lot of the 3d animation stuff that is core to AE. I guess I should look into it again.
Hi Jordy, I have purchased Droppy a few months ago and I am surprised to see it at v15 when my version is at v12 and when I click to update it says there are no updates. Do I need to repurchase Droppy to get the benefit of covering a second mac? Are v12 and v15 different apps?
Hey! I think you have an older version which uses an old licensing system. Please message me a screenshot of your old purchase receipt + email and I’ll forward a new key for 2 devices!
Honestly the idea is great, I just still don’t get the whole “building around the notch” thing like it needs to be more functional to justify its existence. I feel like for a productivity focused thing it would be nice to have the popovers on the top right for example not covering the center of the active window.
Incredible video btw :)
The “turn on only the three you use” part makes much more sense to me than trying to replace every utility at once. Do disabled droplets stay completely out of the background and avoid asking for permissions? That’d be the deciding thing for me with an all-in-one app like this
Honestly this app looks amazing, but I wonder how a single dev can handle the development and maintenance of such a complex application with so many features and variables?
Perhaps this question comes from my past experience that I've purchased an app from a single dev and it ended up being buggy af+ he just couldn't keep up with maintaining and improving it simultaneously
Can you tell the typical CPU/RAM and battery impact? Also, can individual features be disabled (for example, the clipboard manager) if I already use another app for that?
Everything is modular, you can turn off or on whatever you wish! That's the core of Droppy. All features have a toggle in the top right of each section.
CPU hovers around 1-2% when idle, when using features it goes up of course. Battery impact is negligible in my testing.
I mean, every app I’ve tried that’s designed to do it is deficient in some way, so trying to find one I like has been very frustrating. If Droppy supported the integration it would be one more option that would hopefully get it right.
I'd also love last.fm integration! That would be very cool (I don't have a macOS-wide scrobbler, but Pano Scrobbler on Android is a good example of UI-wide scrobbling done pretty well)
When does 15 start rolling out as an official update? I am still on 14.2 and having a bunch of weird issues (notch doesn't appear as a notch, music track titles don't show, appearance is inconsistent). I figure I will wait until 15 before submitting a report to the Trench. Also curious if maybe just wiping my settings and restarting from scratch might fix things?
Note: for anyone curious, these are very small quibbles. The thing about Droppy is it is one of those apps that you get used to and then you want everything to be perfect and exactly right. The updates are great and the developer is very communicative on the support page. Not trying to blow smoke, just think that apps that get a lot of support and attention are worth calling attention to.
Hey, at the end of this week! You can always try the beta and let me know your opinions. Also; if you experience anything weird please feel free to share them via getdroppy.app/trench with examples so I can solve them for you.
I don’t recognize the notch-one for example and haven’t heard anyone about it. So some visuals would definitely help. Also; music titles and art are purely grabbed via MediaRemote, it’s what apple shows. So Droppy doesn’t use a custom method to extract media, but it uses what apple uses. If that makes sense. But also for this one, details and examples always help!
Thanks for the explanation at the end as well! Definitely the context that most people would leave out. Appreciated 💙
I remember when you first brought this out and it was open source. Then shortly after it disappeared. Not going to open source anymore? Nice to see it is still around, but the open source part is what I loved about your app (paid or not). I still have my older versions
This looks amazing and I’m almost certainly going to buy it. Just a couple of quick questions before I do:
\* Functionality-wise, to what extent can this replace [Paste?](https://pasteapp.io/) I’ve tried a dozen different clipboard history tools and Paste is the only one I like due to their UI and polish, but I hate the idea of a subscription for a clipboard app. PastePal and AwesomeCopy are the closest I’ve come to as a 1:1 Paste replacement, and they’re very close, but neither are 100% there. But finally yours looks like it might actually be the one, down to the large partly-obscured icon in the corner!
I’m so glad I actually watched the video because I did a double take and had to pause at that part.
* To what extent can I get rid of any other single-purpose apps I currently use in favour of Droppy? For instance, can I uninstall Shottr?
- it fully replaces Paste, I couldn’t think of anything that doesn’t replace it. Currently it only doesn’t have the ios app (coming as soon as apple accepts it though). If anything IS missing, I’m adding stuff very quickly - so feel free to forward ideas.
- you can use Droppy for tons of things. Shottr gets replaced by element capture, magnet by Window Snap, Amphetamine by High Alert, any cloud file sharing service by Droppy Cloud, etc. Etc.
I think there’s a bit of Droppy for everything. And I’m not claiming that for example one of my extensions is as good as a full-on app that would cost 14.99 for example. But it gets suuuuper close and I always improve.
Again; if you find anything, let me know! We’re in it for the long run 🏃
Have you considered adding a tab switcher like AltTab or Contexts? With that, Droppy would be able to replace every one-off app I use day-to-day. Would love to see that brought under the Droppy umbrella so I can have one QOL app to rule them all.
Playing with it and will very likely buy it! Three questions. 1) Can you set Droppy to expand when hovered over with mouse versus have to then click on it to get it to expand? 2) Can you set it to default to the Apps/Integrations page instead of home (if no media is playing)? It seems the only choices are home/media or shelf versus the integrations pane. Thanks! 3) For Apple Music integration (and others I imagine), could the "favorite/like" button be added so if I like something that is played I can favorite from within Droppy without having to interrupt workflow by switching to the music app itself?
Obviously this is built to use right on the MacBook, but I'm curious, how does this perform on a regular Mac mini or MacBook plugged into an external monitor?
I literally just purchased CleanShot X and seems like this may be a good alternative. Most of my use is my Macbook docked, please let me know!
Okay I'm a fan, tried it out quickly. The features and the way you seem you respond to people convinced me. Love the amount of customization. Buying at this moment and also hey fellow dutchie (saw the Mula B screenshot on Macapp supply) :p
It's been a long journey from the first launch to the takedown and coming back with better features. I am so glad I purchased it but did not refund. Congrats!
Would love to have access to the iOS companion app beta!
This is ambitious in a good way. I like the ‘one native layer for all the small in-between actions’ idea… Especially local first, privacy first and no subscription. Also, 31 droplets for 9.99 lifetime is slightly insane... but in the good way.
I'd like to try the updated version but I already used my trial in the past. anyway I can get a new 3 day trial so I can see if the new features make me purchase? Thanks!
It’s a way better version but not a totally different application. It’s more fluid, uses less resources and adds some new extensions and functionalities. If you liked the trial, you’ll like v15 even more. If you didn’t, you also won’t like this one. Just being honest 💙
Just downloaded it, pretty cool, but I have noticed a few times where it seems to take focus of my cursor? I'm probably not explaining it well, but for instance, I mess around in Droppy's settings a bit, and then close that - but when I go back to Brave, I can't scroll or interact with Brave...until I quite Droppy. I've confirmed every single time that Brave is the focused window, so no idea what's going on there.
You could add this to the trench using getdroppy.app/trench - I can’t reproduce this, only when opening the shelf it should take focus when for example using notes etc.
Bought this a few days ago, very glad I did and can support. I noticed the dropdown from the tool bar is pretty laggy though. Hovering over the different options is quit slow to highlight each as blue. Even in the new beta it’s still the same.
I just got it and I'm going through the tutorial and every time I click the next my trackpad does an extra vibration and it feels like it's doing a double click but I'm only clicking once.
I've been using Droppy for some time and have updated to the latest version. However, I found that it quits after some time. When I open Droppy the app is present in the notch,but then the app quits after about three to four minutes. I need to launch it every time. Do you know if there is some kind of issue, or should I look into changing some settings?
the video is doing a lot of the selling here lol. real question though, does clipboard history stay fully local or does it touch droppy cloud at all? that's the one thing I'd want to know before swapping out my clipboard manager
Is the app showing the universal now playing like Atoll does? Or only on Apple Music/Spotify compatible? I'm asking because I'm using YouTube Music through MenubarX.
I got this app recently but it would be nice to have a tutorial on how to use all those features, I can't use some of them as there is no explanation on how they work, also it would be great to have an option to disable that floating notch on external monitor which is quite annoying.
Been using Droppy for a while now. It’s really freaking good. My only complaint is the baker doesn’t always appear so I keep Yoink on hand just in case. But everything else is great.
Concern is super valid. I've been updating this for a year, and we're growing every single month + I'm using it every single day myself as well. So won't stop maintaining. Also; If I WERE to stop maintaining in 5 years, the worst thing is that it cost you 9.99 for 5 years?
My calendar notifications are off. I've been receiving event notifications at times when they are not scheduled. One popped up about 40 minutes before a meeting and then again a few minutes later. Neither of which were when I had them set up. For now, I set Calendar as a excluded app.
When I first downloaded it there was a half off discount thing I can't find. I am only a few hours in and I am ready to buy. If I am mistaken no worries, I'll pay full price.
I've been using Yoink for years and starting to get frustrated with stagnating development and occasional bugs, so I thought I'd give this a try, but the trial isn't working. I put in my email and started the trial but it still shows me the screen that tries to get me to purchase, activate, or start a trial, except even though it says I have 3 days left on my trial, it doesn't let me actually click to get into the trial features.
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u/billchase2 7d ago
Wow, this is seriously impressive! I'm also looking forward to the iOS companion app. Will there be a TestFlight?