Instagram announced on Thursday that it’s bringing Edits, its short-form video editing app, to desktop on Mac. The desktop version is designed for more complex video-editing projects that benefit from a larger screen, mouse, and keyboard, the company says.
The move puts Edits in more direct competition with ByteDance’s CapCut, the video-editing app Meta sought to challenge when it launched Edits last year. CapCut, which is a massively popular tool for creators, has been available on desktop for Windows and Mac since 2021.
Instagram notes that the desktop app includes licensed and royalty-free music, sound and video effects, and automatic captions in multiple languages. Audio and text styles that creators saved on the mobile app sync over to the desktop app, and users can customize keyboard shortcuts or import them from other editing software.
It also features a full multi-track timeline, keyframes for transitions, audio waveforms for accurate cuts, and more. Additionally, creators can import their own font files.
“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 blog post. “You’ve got a dozen clips going, you’re trying to land a cut on the exact beat, and your thumb covers the part of the timeline you need to see. Your work is growing, and your tools should grow with it. We’re expanding Edits to take on your most ambitious projects on desktop.”
Creators can publish from the desktop editor directly to Instagram with native features like tagging and location built in. The company says this gets rid of the need for creators to edit on desktop, download the file, move it to mobile, and then make more edits before posting it.
Edits will also support horizontal and vertical video formats, with watermark-free exports in 4K resolution for sharing across platforms or personal use, Instagram says.
The company plans to ship weekly updates to improve the desktop editor, noting that it’s currently working to make it possible for creators to edit one project across both desktop and mobile seamlessly.
Instagram also said it’s going to continue to grow the mobile Edits app for the more than 50 million creators who use it.
