Is the MacBook notch gone? No, most MacBooks keep it

No. The notch is gone from one Mac only: the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display, where Apple's new Dynamic Island takes its place. The MacBook Air keeps its notch, and so do the mini-LED MacBook Pros, including the 14-inch M6 model Apple announced on 27 October 2026.

If you own a notched MacBook, or you are about to buy one, nothing about it changes. The menu bar, the camera and your settings stay as they are. This post covers who keeps the notch, why the new Mac doesn't affect yours, and how to get along with a notch if it bugs you.

Who keeps the notch

Every MacBook Air from the M2 on still has one, and so does every 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro made before the PROLED model. That includes the mini-LED M5 Pro and M5 Max models from March 2026, which Apple still sells, and the M6 model, which goes on sale on 6 November, the same day as the PROLED one. Which Macs have a Dynamic Island has the full table, Macs with no notch at all included.

So the notch isn't leaving the line-up. It leaves one model and stays on every other MacBook that already had it. If you are buying new this month, the notch comes with every MacBook Air Apple sells, and with every MacBook Pro whose name doesn't end in "with PROLED XDR Display".

Why the new Mac doesn't change yours

The notch on your MacBook is hardware: a cutout in the screen that holds the camera. No pixels sit under it, so there is nothing for an update to redraw. The island arrives with a different display, a tandem OLED panel with a touch sensor built in, and early hands-on reports say the camera on it sits in a hole-punch rather than a notch. Apple hasn't announced anything that brings an island to an existing Mac.

macOS Golden Gate, the macOS that ships with the new MacBook Pro, also brings Siri AI, Visual Intelligence and changes to Safari, Shortcuts and Photos. Apple hasn't said which of those need the new Mac. The only thing it ties to that Mac is the Dynamic Island itself.

Should you wait for a Mac without a notch

Only if you want the island itself, or a Mac with touch. Apple hasn't said anything about the notch's future on the rest of the line. What you can see today is that it is still launching notched Macs: the M6 MacBook Pro arrives the same week as the PROLED model, with a notch.

If you are choosing between the two MacBook Pro designs, the differences are the screen (tandem OLED with touch, or mini-LED without), the island, and the price, with the PROLED models costing more than the comparable mini-LED ones. If you don't want a touchscreen, the notched model is a full MacBook Pro, not a lesser one. And if you simply want no notch, the MacBook Neo already has even bezels, with the camera in the top bezel.

Living well with a notch

Most complaints about the notch are about the menu bar, not the camera. A few habits deal with them.

Keep the menu bar short

On a notched Mac, app menus run along the left of the camera and status icons along the right. When there are more icons than fit, macOS hides the ones that don't, and it offers no overflow menu to reach them. Menu bar icons hidden behind the notch goes through every fix. The two quickest:

1. Hold Command and drag the icons you use most to the right, next to the clock.
2. Turn off the icons you don't need: in System Settings > Menu Bar on macOS Tahoe, or System Settings > Control Center on Sonoma and Sequoia.

Let full screen hide it

In full screen, macOS moves the window below the notch and turns the strip on either side black, so the notch disappears into a plain black band. The menu bar slides back when you push the pointer against the top edge. Full screen apps on a notched MacBook explains the band and the settings around it.

Darken the top of the wallpaper

The menu bar takes on some of the color of the wallpaper behind it. A wallpaper that is black along its top edge gives you a dark menu bar, and the notch fades into it. Plenty of owners find they stop noticing it after a while anyway.

Fix the odd app that ignores it

A few older apps and games don't know about the notch and can draw part of their window behind it. Select the app in Applications, choose File > Get Info, and if you see "Scale to fit below built-in camera", turn it on. The app then keeps to the area below the notch. The option only appears for some apps, and most current apps never need it.

Don't worry about screenshots

The notch never shows in screenshots or screen recordings. macOS captures the full rectangle it draws, so other people see a clean menu bar with an empty stretch in the middle, not a bite out of the top.

Use an external display

Close the lid and work on an external display, and the notch is out of the picture. It only exists on the built-in screen.

A job for the notch

The notch sits at the center of the top edge, where your eyes pass all day, which makes it a decent spot for a gentle nudge. Notchpals uses it that way. Now and then a character peeks out with a reminder about your day: water, a stretch, an eye break, lunch, a meeting, bed. Then it goes back in. It never turns up during a call or over a full screen app. Bitsy, a toddler in the Sleep area, starts herding you toward bed in the hour before your bedtime.

BitsyIs it bedtime soon? Yes! Put your toys away. Your computer toys too.

The short version

The notch stays on the MacBook Air and on every mini-LED MacBook Pro, M6 included. Only the PROLED XDR MacBook Pro swaps it for the Dynamic Island. If you own a notched Mac, you lose nothing, and a tidy menu bar makes it easier to live with.