Dynamic Island on macOS is a clever use of wasted space. Windows laptops usually don’t have a notch. However, the concept still makes sense: a small, always-accessible hub for your music controls, notifications, quick-launch apps, and frequently used tools like a calculator. If you enjoy customizing your Windows desktop, this is worth a look.

Dynamic Edge is a new app that brings the macOS-style Dynamic Island to Windows as a floating edge dock. You hover over the Edge of your screen and get instant access to your media controls, favorite apps, and clipboard history.

Adding Dynamic Island to Windows

Dynamic Edge brings Apple’s clever design idea to your PC

Dynamic Edge brings the clever design idea we’ve seen on Apple devices to Windows. What you get is a small docked hub for actions that you perform repeatedly, without opening separate apps or digging through menus.

For instance, you can play, pause, or stop music from one place. It also lets you control your system volume by scrolling the mouse wheel over the dock, which saves you from reaching for the system tray every time you want to adjust the volume. You can quickly launch your browser, calculator, or any other app you use often. By default, it has Spotify, Calculator, and Google Chrome as quick-launch shortcuts, but you can add more (though that option is behind a paywall).

Hover over the dock and scroll up or down to switch between other widgets (or Island Tabs). The first one you’ll see is a timer widget that can act as your Pomodoro session or stopwatch. You can choose from presets or set your custom time, which is handy if you like to work in focused blocks.

Scroll again, and you get to the app launcher. One more scroll gets you to the clipboard manager, which stores text, images, URLs, and files you’ve copied. It looks strikingly similar to Edge Drop, a dedicated clipboard manager that also lives on the side of your screen and can be accessed with a hover. Dynamic Edge’s clipboard shows your copied items with tabs for filtering by type, so you can quickly find that link or screenshot you copied earlier. You can pin clips to keep them around or clear your history when things get cluttered.

There are a handful of customizations

You can tweak the dock’s position, appearance, and behavior

Most of the items you see on the dock can be customized. In the settings, head to Island Tabs to choose which tabs appear. So if you only want the media player, or just the timer and the clipboard, you can strip the others out.

Under Position & Docking, you can choose where the dock appears: top, left, or right of your screen. You also get to pick the appearance style. You can have a thin line that activates after you hover your mouse over it, or a floating capsule that sits on the screen edge. There’s a Quick Hide/Show Hotkey (Alt + H by default) to toggle the Island’s visibility, and an auto-hide option for fullscreen apps and games so it doesn’t get in the way during presentations or gaming sessions. You can even enable Magic Shake, which lets you quickly shake your mouse back and forth to toggle the Island.

The Appearance & Themes section lets you change the Island’s backdrop tone and accent color. You can go with OLED True Black for a look that blends into dark backgrounds, or choose from other palettes. The accent color applies to play buttons, status indicators, and waveform bars. Under Interaction & Physics, you’ll find options like Quiet Feed Mode, which suppresses repeated pop-ups when you’re scrolling through short videos on YouTube Shorts, Reels, or TikTok. There’s also a hover dwell delay slider so the dock doesn’t open accidentally when you move your cursor across the top of the screen.

Some features need a one-time purchase

The Plus version unlocks more customization for $4.99

Dynamic Edge works well as a free app, but some features are locked behind the Plus upgrade, which costs $4.99 as a one-time purchase.

The Plus version unlocks Google Lens Visual Search, which lets you search any clipboard image in your browser with one click. You also get Unlimited Launcher Slots, so you can add as many apps and folders to the dock as you want, instead of the three default ones. In-Island Fast Shortcuts let you launch apps and open folders right from the capsule without expanding the full dock. There’s also Image OCR Text Extraction, which can pull text from any copied image or screenshot offline.

One of the more playful additions is the Interactive Island Companion, a virtual desktop mascot that sits on the dock. You can choose from options like Mochi Kitty, Shiba Inu, CyberBot, or Pip Bunny, and it responds to cursor gaze and touch petting. It’s not a productivity feature by any stretch, but it adds some personality to the dock. The Plus version also unlocks Large & Extra Large UI Scaling presets, Auto-Hide when Idle for zero distraction, and Animated Island Eyes that follow your cursor.

Dynamic Edge is fun to have, but it’s not aperfect

Dynamic Edge is not perfect, and it has a few rough spots. The UI isn’t as fluid as I’d expect from a native WinUI 3 app. Animations occasionally feel a step behind, and the dock can sometimes take a beat to respond when you hover over it quickly. There’s also no option to manually drag and place the capsule to a specific spot on the screen. You’re limited to the top, left, or right edges. While that stays true to the Dynamic Island concept, an option to move it freely would make it more flexible for people with community mods or custom setups.

The bigger issue is that customizing which apps appear on the dock requires the Plus version. For a feature that feels like it should be part of the free tier, gating it behind a paywall is a bummer. That said, if you want a central place to control your system volume, manage media playback, run a Pomodoro timer, or keep your clipboard in reach, Dynamic Edge is worth trying.