Best offline image upscalers for Mac
The best free option in this category is genuinely excellent, and we sell a paid one. Both of those things are true, so this page leads with the free one and is specific about the narrow set of reasons to pay for anything else.
Start here: Upscayl, free and open source
Upscayl is free, open source under AGPL‑3.0, runs Real‑ESRGAN entirely on your own machine, works offline, adds no watermark and runs on macOS, Windows and Linux.
For upscaling photos for the web, social media or ordinary prints, it is as good as this category gets at any price. If you have landed here looking for an upscaler and have not tried it, try it first — nothing below will save you money compared to free.
What upscaling is, briefly
Dragging a corner in Preview stretches the pixels you already have, which is why an enlarged photo goes soft and blocky. An AI upscaler reconstructs detail that the small version implies: edges stay sharp, texture stays texture, and text in a screenshot stays readable. Different operation, not a better setting.
It matters most for images you cannot reshoot — an old family photo, a product shot that only exists at thumbnail size, a logo someone emailed at 400 px, a frame grabbed from video.
The honest state of quality
At 2×, free and paid tools are comparable. At 4×, the expensive options still hold a slight edge on very fine detail — individual hair strands, small text — but the gap has narrowed considerably, and most of what is sold as a quality difference is really a difference in interface, formats and support.
Test on your own hardest image before paying anyone. It takes five minutes and it is more reliable than any comparison page, including this one.
The options
Upscayl — free, open source
Covered above, and the honest first recommendation. Real‑ESRGAN, local, no watermark, batch support, multiple models. The bar everything else has to clear.
Real-ESRGAN directly — free, command line
The engine underneath Upscayl and several commercial tools, usable straight from a terminal. Free, scriptable and unlimited if you are comfortable there, with no interface at all if you are not.
Topaz Gigapixel / Photo AI — subscription
The long-standing professional choice, with genuine strengths on RAW files and Lightroom and Photoshop integration. Note the change: Topaz ended Gigapixel's perpetual licence in September 2025, and Photo AI is now subscription-only at roughly $199 a year. If you are here because your one-time licence no longer gets updates, that is why.
Mac App Store upscalers — mixed
Several exist at low prices, most wrapping the same open models. Quality is usually fine; the things to check are whether they watermark, whether they cap image size, and whether processing is genuinely local rather than a cloud call behind a native interface.
Upscale — ours
Disclosure: we make this one, and it is not the cheapest thing on this page. It runs the same official xinntao Real‑ESRGAN weights as Upscayl — we are not claiming a secret model. What you are paying £29 once for is a signed, notarised native Mac app, HEIC and TIFF input alongside the usual formats, a photo and an illustration model, a batch queue, and membership of a suite that shares one account and one licence.
Do not buy it if Upscayl already does what you need. It is free, it uses the same engine, and for most images the output will be indistinguishable. Buy this if you want a supported native app on a perpetual licence, or you already own other tools in the suite.
Side by side
| Tool | Cost | Engine | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upscayl | Free, open source | Real-ESRGAN | Almost everyone |
| Real-ESRGAN CLI | Free | Real-ESRGAN | Scripting, pipelines |
| Topaz Photo AI | ~$199/yr, subscription | Proprietary | RAW, Lightroom workflows |
| App Store apps | Low one-time, varies | Usually open models | Simple needs, check watermarks |
| Upscale | £29 once | Real-ESRGAN | Native app, HEIC/TIFF, suite |
Checked 27 September 2026. Prices move — verify before buying, and tell us if this is stale.
How to choose
- You just want your photo bigger — Upscayl. Free, and that is the whole answer.
- You script things — Real-ESRGAN from the command line.
- RAW files and a Lightroom workflow — Topaz, if the subscription is worth it to you.
- A perpetual licence and a supported native app — Upscale, and it is fair to say that is a narrower reason than "it is better".
Questions
What is the best free image upscaler for Mac?
Upscayl. It is free, open source under AGPL-3.0, runs Real-ESRGAN entirely on your machine, adds no watermark and works offline. For most people upscaling photos for web, social or ordinary prints, it is genuinely all that is needed and nothing here beats it on price.
Is paid upscaling actually better than free?
Less than the marketing suggests. At 2× the free tools are comparable to the expensive ones. At 4× the paid options still hold a slight edge on very fine detail like hair strands and small text, but the gap has narrowed a lot. Test on your own images before paying.
Does Topaz still sell a one-time licence?
No. Topaz ended the perpetual licence for Gigapixel in September 2025, and Photo AI is now sold by subscription — around $199 a year, or roughly $12 to $29 a month depending on the plan. The old buy-once deal is gone, which is why alternatives are being searched for.
What does upscaling actually do that resizing does not?
Resizing stretches the pixels you already have, which is why an enlarged photo goes soft and blocky. An AI upscaler reconstructs detail the small version implies: edges stay sharp, texture stays texture, and text in a screenshot stays readable. They are different operations, not settings.
Which model should I use for drawings and anime?
A model trained for illustration rather than photographs. The photo models tend to invent skin-like texture in flat colour areas, which looks wrong on line art and animation. Most Real-ESRGAN-based tools ship both variants, so check the setting exists before you commit to one.
Do any of these upload my images?
Everything on this page runs locally. Many popular upscalers are web services that upload your image, cap your free usage and sometimes watermark the result. If your images are client work, product shots under embargo or anything confidential, check which kind you are using.