Instagram is bringing its Edits video-editing app to Mac, giving creators a desktop workspace for projects that outgrow the phone screen—and putting the company in more direct competition with ByteDance’s CapCut.
Announced Thursday, the Mac version is built for more complex editing, with a larger display, mouse and keyboard controls. CapCut, a popular creator tool that Meta sought to challenge when it launched Edits last year, has offered desktop apps for Windows and Mac since 2021.
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A Desktop Toolkit For More Ambitious Edits
The desktop app includes a multitrack timeline, keyframes for transitions and audio waveforms to help creators make precise cuts. Users can also import their own font files and customize keyboard shortcuts—or bring in shortcuts from other editing software.
Edits for Mac also offers licensed and royalty-free music, sound and video effects, and automatic captions in multiple languages. Audio and text styles saved in the mobile app sync to desktop, helping creators carry their preferred look and sound across devices.
“A lot of creators have described the same moment to us: a project gets too big for your phone,” Brett Westervelt, head of Edits, said in a company blog post. He described projects with numerous clips, where a small screen can make it difficult to see the timeline and place a cut precisely. “Your work is growing, and your tools should grow with it,” he said.
Publishing Directly To Instagram
Creators can publish from the desktop editor straight to Instagram, with features such as tagging and location available in the workflow. That removes a cumbersome handoff: editing on a computer, transferring the file to a phone, and making final changes before posting.
The app supports horizontal and vertical video, and Instagram says creators can export watermark-free files in 4K for use on other platforms or for personal projects.
More Updates Are Planned
Instagram says it plans to release weekly updates as it improves the desktop editor. One priority is enabling creators to move seamlessly between desktop and mobile while working on the same project.
The company also plans to keep developing the mobile Edits app, which Instagram says is used by more than 50 million creators. The Mac launch broadens the product’s reach, but its longer-term appeal will depend on how smoothly it connects the flexibility of desktop editing with the speed of publishing on Instagram.
