Instagram Releases Free Mac Version of Its Edits Video App to Compete With CapCut

The launch takes Meta's contest with CapCut, the editing app owned by TikTok parent ByteDance, onto the desktop, where CapCut has offered Windows and Mac software since 2021. Meta introduced Edits on mobile in April 2025 as its answer to CapCut, and Instagram says more than 50 million creators now use the mobile app. Bringing those users onto a desktop tool keeps more of their production work inside Meta's products rather than a rival's.

The Mac app is built around a timeline with multiple video and audio tracks, keyframes for transitions and audio waveforms for precise cuts. Creators can grade colour with advanced tools, import their own fonts and set custom keyboard shortcuts. It carries over Instagram's licensed music library along with royalty-free audio, sound and video effects, and automatic captions in several languages. Audio and text styles saved in the mobile app also appear on the desktop.

Videos can be cut in horizontal or vertical formats and exported in 4K without a watermark, which means creators can publish the same files on competing platforms.

The app also supports AI-assisted editing through connected agents, including Meta's Muse. Creators can ask an AI agent to put together a rough cut and then refine it by hand. That sits alongside Instagram's existing AI features for creators, which suggest changes based on how videos perform and how audiences engage with them.

There are gaps. The desktop app runs only on Mac for now, and Instagram has not given a date for a Windows release. Creators also cannot yet open the same project on both desktop and mobile. Saved styles sync between devices, but Instagram said it is still working on full cross-device project editing.

Instagram first showed its desktop plans in June. The company said it intends to ship weekly updates to the Mac app.