Best offline background removal apps for Mac
Start with the free ones — including the remover already built into macOS, which a surprising number of people do not know exists. One entry here is ours, labelled as such, with the cases where you should not buy it.
Try the one you already own first
Since macOS Ventura, background removal has been built into the system. There are three ways in and none of them cost anything:
- Preview — open the image, then Tools → Remove Background.
- Photos — right-click the image and choose Copy Subject.
- Finder — select a file and use the Quick Action to lift the subject straight to a transparent PNG.
For a clear subject against a plain background this is genuinely good, and it is instant. Try it on your actual images before reading any further. If it handles them, you are done and this page has saved you some money.
Where the free tools run out
The built-in remover has three limits, and they are the reason this category has a paid tier at all:
- Edges. Hair, fur, motion blur, glass, smoke — anything where a pixel is genuinely part subject and part background.
- Volume. One image at a time, by hand. Fine for five, painful for five hundred.
- Control. You get a cutout. You do not get to choose a flat backdrop colour, and you cannot export the mask on its own.
If none of those describe your work, stop here. If all three do, the rest of the page is for you.
The apps
macOS built-in — free, already installed
Covered above. Free, offline, no download, no account. The correct first stop and the right answer for a lot of people.
withoutBG for Mac — free
A free Mac app for batch background removal, running locally with no account and no upload. If your images are straightforward and what you want is throughput rather than edge quality, this closes the "one at a time" gap for nothing.
LocalBG — free tier
Runs offline with a free tier that is unlimited one image at a time, plus a paid tier for batching. Cross-platform rather than Mac-native, which shows in the interface, but the price is hard to argue with.
Droply — paid, one-time
A native macOS app sold for a small one-time price, positioned squarely against subscriptions and cloud services. If you want something more polished than the free apps without a recurring bill, it is the obvious first paid option to look at.
rembg and friends — free, command line
The open-source models several of these tools are built on, usable directly if you are comfortable with Python. Free, scriptable, unlimited, and no interface whatsoever. The right answer for a pipeline, the wrong one for occasional use.
Cutout — ours
Disclosure: we make this one. It runs a CoreML segmentation model on the Apple Neural Engine and is built specifically around the edge problem — a soft‑edged mask rather than a hard selection, so hair, fur and glass keep their partial transparency. Three outputs: transparent PNG, flattened onto a colour you pick, or the greyscale matte on its own. Batch queue. £29 once, perpetual, with a free tier capped at 1600 px output and no watermark.
Do not buy it if Preview already handles your images — it will not do a meaningfully better job on a clean subject against a plain backdrop, and we would rather say so than take the £29.
Side by side
| Tool | Cost | Batch | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| macOS built-in | Free | No | Clean subjects, occasional use |
| withoutBG | Free | Yes | Volume on straightforward images |
| LocalBG | Free tier + paid | Paid tier | Unlimited single images, free |
| Droply | Small one-time | Yes | A polished cheap native app |
| rembg | Free, CLI | Scripted | Pipelines and automation |
| Cutout | £29 once | Yes | Hair, fur, glass; matte export |
Checked 27 September 2026. Prices and features move — verify before buying, and tell us if this has gone stale.
How to choose
- A handful of clean images — Preview. It is free and already open.
- Lots of straightforward images — withoutBG, still free.
- You script things — rembg.
- You want native polish, cheaply — Droply.
- Hair, fur, glass, or you need the matte — that is the specific case Cutout is built for.
The honest summary: this category has a very good free floor. Pay only when the edge or the throughput is genuinely costing you time.
Questions
Does macOS remove backgrounds on its own?
Yes, and it has since Ventura. Open an image in Preview and use Tools, or right-click a photo in Photos and choose Copy Subject, or use the Finder Quick Action. It is free, instant and already installed. For a clean subject on a plain background it is often all you need.
So when is a dedicated app worth paying for?
When the edge is the job. The built-in tools handle a clear subject well but struggle with hair, fur, motion blur and semi-transparent things like glass or smoke. They also do one image at a time and give you no control over the output. Those three gaps are what paid apps sell.
Are the free third-party apps any good?
Yes. withoutBG and LocalBG both run locally, cost nothing and handle batches between them. If your images are straightforward and what you want is more throughput than Preview offers, start with those before spending anything at all in this category.
What does a soft-edged mask actually mean?
A hard selection decides each pixel is in or out, which looks jagged on hair and wrong on anything translucent. A soft mask lets pixels be partly transparent, so a strand of hair keeps its natural blend. It is the single biggest difference in output quality between these tools.
Can I get the mask on its own?
Some tools export the greyscale matte separately, which matters if you composite in Photoshop, Affinity or a video editor rather than using the cutout directly. It is worth checking before you buy, because plenty of otherwise capable apps only give you the finished PNG.
Do any of these upload my images?
The ones on this page all process locally, which is the point of the list. Many popular background removers are cloud services that upload your image to a server. For product photography under embargo, client work or anything confidential, that distinction is worth checking yourself.