Does the timer make a banner notification?

No. When it finishes it plays a sound you choose from Glass, Ping, Hero, Submarine or Funk, or no sound.

How to keep time and notes while presenting on a Mac

Calls and recording Published 4 November 2026

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To keep time while presenting, start a countdown in NotchStar’s Timers tab for the length of your slot, and keep a short outline in Quick Note. The timer follows the clock, so it stays accurate even if the notch is closed, and a running timer keeps going when the notch is closed. Hover over the notch to read the time left.

Set up before you start

Open the notch and choose Timers, then the Timer mode.
Use the length picker to choose the minutes. The timer lengths run from 5 to 60 minutes.
Pick the finish sound in the sound menu. Choose No Sound if a sound would be disruptive. The alert is a sound only. There is no banner.
In Quick Note, type the three or four points you must not forget. It saves as you type and holds one plain text note.

During the talk

Press play when you begin. The timer keeps counting when the notch is closed. Nothing shows beside the closed notch, so hover over it to see the ring and the time left. Press pause if there is a long interruption, and reset to start again.

A good trick is to set the timer a few minutes short of your slot so that the sound is a warning to wrap up, not the moment you must stop. That is your call, not something NotchStar does for you.

What to test first

Volume. The sound comes from your Mac. Play it at your presenting volume. If you share audio in your call app, your listeners may hear it.
What is visible. If you present from a laptop connected to a projector or share your whole display, the notch area may be visible. NotchStar does not hide from screen sharing. Use your presentation app’s own preview, and read the screen sharing page.
Typing. Quick Note takes keyboard focus while you type in it. Do your editing before the talk, not during.

What this does not do

It does not show a countdown on your slides or in the audience view.
Timers reset when NotchStar quits, so do not quit it before the talk ends.
There is no repeating alarm at intervals. For a talk with sections, use the stopwatch to see elapsed time and glance at your note.

For the technique of working in timed blocks, the Pomodoro guide covers the cycle. The Timers page lists every mode.

Quick answers.

Will the audience see my timer?

Only if the notch is in what you share or project. Test with your presentation setup before the real talk.

Link to this answer

Keep reading.

Timer, stopwatch and Pomodoro in the notch: A timer, stopwatch and Pomodoro with session tracking, always one hover away in the Mac notch. It keeps counting while the notch is closed.
A scratchpad that is always one hover away: A plain text scratchpad in the notch that saves as you type. Jot down a number, a name or a to do without opening another app.
Will a notch teleprompter show when I share my screen on a Mac?: NotchStar does not hide its teleprompter from screen sharing or recording. How to share only a window, test first, and which apps claim to hide.
How to run a Pomodoro timer on your Mac: The Pomodoro technique in practice: block lengths, breaks, what to do when you get interrupted, and how to run it from the Mac notch.

Put your notch to work.

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