iMovie is free, and the Mac it runs on is not

61 lands iMovie in our Usable band and sixth of the ten free video editors we score, which is a middling number for a tool that costs nothing and holds nothing back. The gap between those two facts is worth explaining, because the score is not calling iMovie stingy.

What pulls it down is the comparison it is being held to. This category's free field includes editors that install on any desktop and do considerably more for the same nothing, and our method scores what a free tier does as well as what it costs. If you already own a Mac running macOS 15.6, read 61 as a floor rather than a verdict: for you there is no ceiling inside the free plan at all, and a good part of that number is carrying a hardware bill you have already settled.

Nothing about iMovie is metered, so every ceiling here is structural (as of July 2026).

• macOS 15.6 or later, plus 4 GB of memory and 3.5 GB of available disk, with a download of about 3.2 GB. A Mac too old for macOS 15.6 cannot install the current build no matter how free the software is.
• iPhone and iPad need iOS or iPadOS 17.6 or later.
• There is no Windows, Linux, Android or browser version. For most people reading a list of free video editors this is not a partial limit, it is the entire answer.
• Export tops out at 4K. Apple's Mac App Store listing states editing at up to 4K with footage from iPhone 6s or later and other Ultra HD cameras, plus 1080p HD at 60 frames per second. We tried three times to read Apple's own enumeration of the export resolution menu and could not, so we publish no pixel dimensions or frame rates beyond that.
• The mobile build has not shipped since December 2024. iOS and iPadOS sit at 3.0.5, dated 16 December 2024, which is about nineteen and a half months old as of 31 July 2026, while the Mac build is 10.4.4, dated 28 January 2026. Both still work; only one is being touched.

That last point needs care, because "Apple has abandoned iMovie" is a claim we do not support. The Mac build shipped in January 2026. It is the phone half that has not, and if the phone is where you intend to edit, that is the half you are resting on.

There is no ladder here at all. No Pro tier, no subscription, no in-app purchase, nothing to unlock, which is why the card below carries a single row and a price of zero.

What Apple sells instead is a separate product. Final Cut Pro is a different purchase and a different application, not an iMovie upgrade, so moving to it is a decision about wanting colour tools, multicam and a professional timeline rather than a reaction to hitting a free-plan wall. Nothing inside iMovie nudges you toward it.

The money in this arrangement is spent before you ever open the App Store. A machine that can run macOS 15.6 is the entry fee, and iMovie is the only editor in this category whose real cost is a computer. We would rather price that honestly than file it under free: if the Mac is already on your desk it is genuinely nothing, and if it is not, no editor on this list is more expensive to start using.

Yes, with no condition attached to the software itself, and that is a band above where a score of 61 normally lands. The reason for the departure is what the 61 is measuring: it carries a hardware requirement and a comparison against deeper editors, while the free plan has no meter, no watermark, no export cap, no in-app purchase and no tier above it.

Who pays nothing: anyone who already owns a Mac running macOS 15.6 or later and wants a clean cut of a family video, a lecture or a talking head, plus iPhone shooters who start on the phone and finish on a bigger screen. Who cannot use it at all: everyone on Windows, Linux, Android or in a browser, and anyone whose Mac is too old for macOS 15.6. That is a harder no than any usage limit on this site, because there is no reduced version for those readers and no price that unlocks one.

If you are outside Apple's hardware, free iMovie alternatives lists the cross-platform editors that do the same job, and the best free video editors ranks the category.