Instagram Edits comes to Mac with advanced editing tools and AI integration
Meta is bringing Instagram’s Edits video editor to macOS, introducing a multi-track timeline, watermark-free 4K exports and support for AI assistants.
Instagram’s Edits video-editing app is expanding beyond mobile, with a new desktop version now available for Mac. The update brings a more advanced editing workspace, additional creative controls and AI integration, giving users more flexibility when producing videos for Instagram and other platforms.
Originally launched in January 2025, Edits was designed to give creators an alternative to popular mobile editing apps such as CapCut. The new Mac version takes things further, offering a more traditional desktop editing experience while retaining many of the features that made the original app appealing.
Instagram Edits gets a desktop upgrade
The biggest change is the introduction of a full multi-track timeline, making it easier to work with multiple video clips and audio layers in a single project.
Users can split, cut and trim footage with greater precision, while keyframes allow for more dynamic transitions. There are also detailed audio waveforms for accurate cuts, alongside advanced colour grading controls, including colour wheels, curves and log conversions.
The desktop app supports both horizontal and vertical aspect ratios, with watermark-free exports in resolutions up to 4K. This means finished videos can be shared across different platforms without being restricted to Instagram’s usual formats.
There are several other additions, too. Users can import their own fonts and Look-up Tables (LUTs), customise keyboard shortcuts and access Instagram’s licensed and royalty-free audio libraries. Hundreds of sound and video effects are included, alongside automatic captions in multiple languages.
Saved audio and text styles from the mobile app will also be available when users open Edits on Mac. However, the ability to move between mobile and desktop while working on the same project isn’t available just yet.
Instagram says it plans to release weekly updates to the desktop app as it continues developing the experience.
AI assistants can help build video edits
A particularly notable addition is support for AI agents through the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
As The Verge reports, the integration allows users to connect AI assistants, including Meta’s own Muse, to Edits and use them to carry out editing tasks.
For example, a creator could ask an AI agent to find video clips in a folder and assemble them into a rough cut. The resulting project can then be opened in Edits, where the user can continue making adjustments manually.
Matthew Simari, Instagram’s head of product management for Edits, told The Verge that creators can “go back and forth from agentic to manual editing”.
The idea is to let AI handle some of the initial groundwork without taking creative control away from the person making the video. Users aren’t limited to Meta’s own assistant, either, with the MCP integration designed to work with different AI agents.
This builds on Instagram’s earlier introduction of an AI creative assistant for its mobile Edits app, which offers suggestions based on creators’ existing video performance and account analytics.
Instagram continues expanding its video tools
The Mac release is another significant step for Edits since its original launch. When Instagram first announced its dedicated video-editing app, it positioned the software as a place for creators to plan, produce and manage their video content.
Since then, the platform has continued adding features, including AI assistance and more advanced creative controls. The desktop launch also arrives as Instagram experiments with longer-form horizontal video, moving beyond its traditional emphasis on short vertical Reels.
There are some limitations to the new release. Edits for Mac requires an Apple Silicon computer (M1 or later), meaning older Intel-based Macs aren’t supported. There’s currently no Windows or Linux version, either.
Instagram has confirmed that cross-platform project editing is in development, although it hasn’t given a release date. For now, the desktop app offers a more capable editing environment in its own right, with further updates expected.