TL;DR
Instagram released Edits for Mac on November 5: a free desktop video editor with a multi-track timeline, color grading, and 4K export with no watermark, in vertical or horizontal.
You can connect an AI agent to it, and the agent builds a rough cut that you finish by hand.
It only runs on Macs with Apple silicon (M1 or later), you need an Instagram account to sign in, and you can't move a project between your phone and your Mac yet.
Instagram's free video editing app isn't just for your phone anymore. Instagram Edits for Mac launched on November 5, and it's built for the projects that get unwieldy on a small screen: longer videos, lots of clips, and cuts that need to land right on the beat.
Instagram says 50 million people have used Edits in just over a year, and the desktop app will get updates every week.
The feature getting the most buzz? You can hand your footage to an AI agent and get a rough cut back. But even without the AI, it's a full multi-track editor that's free, posts straight to Instagram, and exports clean 4K video for anywhere else you share.
Edits for Mac is the desktop version of Edits, Instagram's standalone video editing app. It's free to download from Instagram, runs on Macs with Apple silicon (M1 or later), and you sign in with your Instagram account.
If you've used Edits on your phone, the layout will feel familiar. You just get a bigger screen, a mouse, and a keyboard to work with. The audio and text styles you've saved on your phone carry over, too.
Edits for Mac has the tools you'd expect from a desktop video editor, and all of them are free:
Timeline: Multiple video and audio tracks, keyframed transitions, and visible audio waveforms for cutting on the beat.
Color: Color wheels, curves, and log conversion, plus import for your own LUTs (preset color looks).
Branding: Custom font import, so your on-screen text matches the rest of your brand.
Audio and effects: A music and sound library Instagram describes as "licensed and royalty-free," along with hundreds of effects for audio and video.
Captions: Unlimited automatic captions in multiple languages.
Shortcuts: Keyboard shortcuts you can customize, including ones you bring over from another editor.
When your video's done, you have two options: Export it in 4K with no watermark, in horizontal or vertical, or post it straight to Instagram from your Mac with tagging, location, and trial reels included.
Basic edits like splitting, cutting, and trimming are simpler on desktop, too.
No more emailing files to yourself just so you can post from your phone.
Edits for Mac works with AI agents through MCP (Model Context Protocol), an open standard that lets AI tools control other apps. Meta's own Muse agent works with it, but Instagram says you can use "any agent you want."
Point the agent at your footage, and it builds a rough cut. That cut opens in Edits as a normal project, so you can change anything by hand. Instagram describes it as going "back and forth from agentic to manual editing."
Think of the agent's cut as a first draft. It saves you the slowest part of the job, but you'll still want to watch it through and make the final calls yourself (an agent doesn't know your audience the way you do).
It's not the first AI feature in Edits, either. In September, the mobile app added an AI creative assistant that suggests ideas and gives feedback based on your account's views and retention.
No. Edits on desktop is macOS only, and Instagram hasn't announced a Windows or Linux version.
A few other limits apply to this first release:
Apple silicon only: Intel-based Macs aren't supported.
Instagram login required: You can't use the app without signing in to an Instagram account.
No cross-device projects yet: You can't start a project on your phone and finish it on your Mac. Instagram says it's working on this.
Have a backlog of long videos you keep meaning to cut into clips? Then Edits for Mac is worth a download.
Webinars, podcasts, event recordings, sermons, game footage, live streams: most long videos have a handful of moments that would work on their own. Finding those moments is a lot easier on a big screen with a full timeline than on a phone.
If you don't already use software with a built-in clip editor (Switcher has one, for example), a free editor like this makes it more realistic to repurpose live streams and other recordings into clips while they're still timely.
Looking through hours of footage for the good parts takes the most time. If an agent can pull a first pass, you (or your volunteer, or your one-person marketing team) get to spend that time polishing instead.
That goes for churches repurposing Sunday livestreams, sports programs pulling highlights, and businesses turning webinars into small business video content.
Not sure which clip will land? Share it as a trial reel.
Trial reels are shown to people who don't follow you first, and your followers won't see them in their Feed or Reels tab unless you choose to share them more widely. About a day after posting, you can check views, likes, comments, and shares.
If a clip does well, you can share it with everyone. (Instagram offers trial reels to eligible accounts, so you may not see the option on every account.)
It's an easy way to learn which short-form video ideas actually work for your audience.
Open your recording in Edits: Move the video file to your Mac and import it into Edits.
Build the first pass: Mark the strongest moments yourself, or ask a connected AI agent to assemble a rough cut.
Polish each clip: Tighten the cuts, add captions, and make sure on-screen text, slides, or sports broadcast graphics still make sense out of context.
Test, then share: Post the vertical version as a trial reel, then export a horizontal version in 4K for YouTube, your website, or anywhere else.
Edits for Mac takes Instagram's free editor from a phone app to a full desktop tool, and the AI rough cut can save a lot of time if you work with long videos.
It's Mac only for now (sorry, Windows users), but if you have an Apple silicon Mac, it costs nothing to try.
If a lot of your footage comes from live events, like a Sunday service, a home game, or a product launch, Switcher has a clip editor built in. With Switcher's Clips, you can trim a recording, switch it to vertical, square, or horizontal, add a title and automatic captions, and share it straight to Instagram or Facebook without leaving the app you streamed from.
For a quick highlight right after a broadcast, that's usually the fastest route. When a project needs multiple tracks, color grading, or an AI rough cut, Edits for Mac is a good free tool to have alongside it.