How to see GitHub notifications on your Mac

Published 2026-08-252 min readCopy link

GitHub has no native macOS app for notifications. If you rely on the default setup, you're either refreshing a browser tab or digging through an inbox. Here are all the realistic options on a Mac, from free to purpose-built.

1. The browser bell

The bell icon on github.com is the baseline: it shows unread items across participating and watching threads. It's fine if you live in the browser anyway — but it only works while a tab is open, it doesn't badge anything outside github.com, and once you've glanced at an item it moves to "Done".

2. Email digests

Under Settings → Notifications, you can get one email per notification or a digest. Email is reliable but slow to act on: each item is a context switch away from the repo, threads arrive in bursts during working hours, and corporate filters sometimes file them under spam ([email protected]).

3. Slack or Discord integrations

Many teams route repository activity into a Slack channel via the GitHub integration or webhooks. Good for team visibility, but noisy by design — you get everyone's activity, filtered by repo rather than by what concerns you. Mentions and review requests drown in CI noise.

4. Third-party apps

A few Mac apps read GitHub notifications through the API:

• Octobox — open-source notification triage in a web UI. Self-hosted or octobox.io. Great for inbox-zero workflows, not ambient awareness.
• Gitify — free Electron menu bar app. Shows unread counts, but development activity has been sporadic and it's Electron-heavy.
• DevNotify — native Tauri app built exactly for this: unread count in the menu bar, click for the list, click again to open the PR. Your token stays local.

Comparison at a glance

The setup we recommend

1. Fix the source first. Check Settings → Notifications so participating and mention events are actually enabled. No client can show what GitHub never sent — see our guide on missing GitHub notifications.
2. Keep the browser for work, not for checking. Stop polling the bell tab.
3. Put the count somewhere you always look: the macOS menu bar. An unread badge there replaces the reflex of opening github.com "just to check".