Frame interpolation

Flowframes for Mac? Your Options for Frame Interpolation on a Mac

Flowframes is the tool people recommend for smoothing video with RIFE, and then you find out there’s no Mac version. Here’s what actually works on a Mac as of October 2026. There’s a free open-source app that’s the closest equivalent, the interpolation built into Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve, Topaz Video if you’re willing to pay for convenience, and command-line tools for those who like a terminal. For each one you get the cost, the effort, and the trade-offs.

Published October 18, 202611 min read

Is there a Flowframes Mac version?

No. The official download page describes Flowframes as “a downloadable tool for Windows.” It requires Windows 10 or 11 and a Vulkan-capable graphics card, and older GPUs aren’t supported. It’s “focused on the RIFE AI,” with support for DAIN and experimental FLAVR and XVFI models. Pricing is name-your-own-price. The free version on itch.io is 1.36.0, and newer versions come out on the developer’s Patreon first (Flowframes on itch.io). The source code describes it as a “Windows GUI for video interpolation” (GitHub).

The page doesn’t describe any Mac setup or running it in a virtual machine, so treat that route as unsupported. To be fair to Flowframes: if you also have a Windows PC with a reasonably modern GPU, it’s an excellent free tool, and you should just use it there. The rest of this guide is for when the Mac is what you have.

Mac options at a glance

Costs are as listed on each official site on October 18, 2026.

REAL Video Enhancer: the closest thing to Flowframes on a Mac

REAL Video Enhancer is an open-source app (AGPL-3.0) that describes itself as a way to “interpolate, upscale, decompress, and denoise videos easily on Linux/Windows/MacOS.” Its README positions it as an alternative to Flowframes (GitHub). Here’s what the README and releases page show:

• Mac builds: the version 2.4 releases (January 2026) include separate macOS downloads for Apple silicon (arm64) and Intel (x86_64).
• macOS version: the README’s feature list says “MacOS 15+,” while its requirements table says macOS 14+. If you’re on macOS 14, check the latest README before downloading.
• Interpolation models: several RIFE versions (4.6 through 4.25), plus GMFSS and IFRNet. It also detects scene changes, so cuts stay sharp.
• Extras: upscaling, decompression, and denoising models. Flowframes doesn’t do these.
• Backends: NCNN for Vulkan 1.3-capable GPUs, plus TensorRT and PyTorch, which target NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. On a Mac, NCNN is the one that applies.

The workflow will feel familiar if you’ve used Flowframes: open a video, choose a model and a multiplier, and render. It’s a volunteer project, so expect some rough edges, and speed depends heavily on your Mac’s GPU. And it’s free, which makes it the obvious first thing to try.

Final Cut Pro: Optical Flow and Machine Learning frame sampling

If you already own Final Cut Pro, you have good interpolation built in. According to Apple’s user guide, when a clip’s frame rate differs from the project’s, you can pick how Final Cut Pro conforms it. Better (Optical Flow) “analyzes the clip to determine the directional movement of pixels” and draws new frames. Best (Machine Learning) uses “a bidirectional optical flow algorithm based on machine learning,” with fewer artifacts and better handling of objects passing in front of each other, and requires a Mac with Apple silicon (Apple). (New to the topic? Start with what frame interpolation is.)

For slow motion, the Retime pop-up menu has Smooth Slo-Mo on Apple silicon, which automatically uses Best (Machine Learning). Apple notes that frame sizes larger than 4K need an M2 chip or later, up to 8K (Apple). Final Cut Pro costs $299.99 as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store, or you can get it in Apple Creator Studio, which costs $12.99 a month or $129 a year after a 30-day free trial (Apple).

DaVinci Resolve: Optical Flow retiming (Speed Warp in Studio)

DaVinci Resolve is a professional editor with a generous free version. Blackmagic says the free version can “edit and finish up to 60 fps in resolutions as high as Ultra HD 3840 x 2160.” That covers 30-to-60 conversion. DaVinci Resolve Studio ($236 one-time, down from $295 as of October 24, 2026) supports up to 120fps. It also adds the DaVinci Neural Engine features, which Blackmagic lists as exclusive to Studio, including “speed warp retiming” (Blackmagic Design).

How it works, per the DaVinci Resolve 21 reference manual:

• Set the timeline to 60fps, then add your 30fps clip.
• In the Inspector, under Retime and Scaling, set Retime Process to Optical Flow. The three options are Nearest, Frame Blend, and Optical Flow, and you can also set a project-wide default.
• With Optical Flow selected, Motion Estimation picks the quality. Blackmagic says the Enhanced modes “should yield superior results in nearly every case where the standard options exhibit artifacts,” and Speed Warp gives “even higher-quality slow motion effects using the DaVinci Neural Engine.” The manual also describes a Mac-specific “AI Speed Warp Metal” variant.

The manual labels many features “Studio Version Only.” Optical Flow isn’t one of them, while Speed Warp falls under the Neural Engine features Blackmagic lists as Studio-exclusive. Expect a learning curve: Resolve is a full post-production suite, so it’s a lot of software for converting one clip.

Topaz Video: the paid, most automated option

Topaz Video (formerly Topaz Video AI) is the commercial tool many people move to from Flowframes. As of October 2026, its pricing page lists three ways to pay for Topaz Video: $299 for a year upfront, $39 a month with a one-year commitment, or $59 month-to-month. Topaz Video Pro is $699 for a year upfront. Topaz also sells bundles (Topaz Labs pricing). Its product page lists frame interpolation and slow motion among its features, with models such as Apollo, Chronos, and Aion (Topaz Labs).

• No more one-time purchase. Topaz says the old perpetual-license app, Video AI, was discontinued in September 2025, and 7.1.5 is its final version. Topaz Video is “subscription-only” (Topaz docs). Industry press reported that perpetual license sales ended on October 3, 2025 (Digital Production). Some review sites still quote the old one-time price, so check the date of anything you read.
• Apple silicon only. “Intel-based Macs are not currently supported,” and the minimum is macOS 13. The same page notes that macOS 27 support is still in progress for its Starlight models (Topaz docs).

One more thing to know before you commit to a subscription: Adobe announced in June 2026 that it has agreed to acquire Topaz Labs. Adobe says Topaz products will remain available as standalone offerings (Adobe).

Topaz is strongest when you have a lot of footage, or when you want upscaling and restoration as well as interpolation. If you only need to smooth a few clips, a year’s subscription is a lot to pay for that.

ffmpeg and RIFE on the command line

ffmpeg minterpolate: free, scriptable, not AI

ffmpeg’s minterpolate filter converts frame rates using motion interpolation (ffmpeg documentation). If you use Homebrew, install it with brew install ffmpeg. Then, to convert a clip to 60fps:

ffmpeg -i input.mov -vf "minterpolate=fps=60:mi_mode=mci:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:vsbmc=1" -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy output.mp4

• fps=60 sets the target frame rate.
• mi_mode=mci selects motion-compensated interpolation. The other modes, dup and blend, only duplicate or average frames.
• mc_mode=aobmc uses adaptive overlapped block motion compensation, which the documentation says reduces oversmoothing.
• me_mode=bidir estimates motion both forward and backward.
• vsbmc=1 uses smaller blocks at object boundaries “to make them less blurry.”

Be realistic about the results. minterpolate matches blocks of pixels rather than using a neural network, so fast or overlapping motion tends to come out warped or blocky. It’s usable on gentle motion and noticeably below RIFE-based tools. At scene cuts, its scene change detection replaces the interpolated frames with duplicates, which avoids smeared transitions. The example above also writes 8-bit H.264. Many iPhones record HDR video by default, and with an HDR source, expect the colors to look different from the original.

rife-ncnn-vulkan: plain RIFE, no GUI

If you want RIFE itself, rife-ncnn-vulkan is an open-source command-line implementation, with a macOS build on its releases page. The latest release is dated October 2022 (GitHub). It works on image files, so the workflow from its README has three steps: extract the audio and every frame with ffmpeg, interpolate the frames, then encode them back into a video at double the frame rate:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn -acodec copy audio.m4a
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 input_frames/frame_%08d.png
./rife-ncnn-vulkan -i input_frames -o output_frames
ffmpeg -framerate 60 -i output_frames/%08d.png -i audio.m4a -c:a copy -crf 20 -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p output.mp4

Create the input_frames and output_frames folders first, and use a frame rate twice your source’s in the last step (60 for a 30fps clip). PNG frames take a lot of disk space. Because the frames lose their original timestamps, variable-frame-rate clips such as screen recordings may drift out of sync with the audio.

Which one should you use?

• Free, and closest to Flowframes: REAL Video Enhancer.
• You already own Final Cut Pro or Creator Studio: Final Cut Pro with Best (Machine Learning).
• You want a free editor too: DaVinci Resolve. The free version handles up to 60fps; Studio adds Speed Warp and 120fps.
• Lots of footage, upscaling too, and a budget: Topaz Video.
• Scripts and batch jobs where perfect quality isn’t needed: ffmpeg minterpolate. For RIFE quality from the terminal, rife-ncnn-vulkan.
• You only want to watch video smoother: SVP 4. Its main job is converting video to 60fps or higher in real time inside players such as IINA, mpv, and VLC. The macOS version needs macOS 12 or later (SVP).
• You also have a Windows PC with a decent GPU: Flowframes.

If the clip is still on your iPhone

Many of these searches start with a video shot on an iPhone. If that’s your situation, you can skip the transfer and process the clip on the iPhone itself. FrameFlo, which I make, runs the RIFE model on the iPhone. It can make a clip 60fps or 120fps at the same length, or turn it into 2× or 4× slow motion. The video is never uploaded. You can convert and save clips up to 10 seconds at up to 60fps for free, and Pro is a one-time purchase.

A phone isn’t the right tool for hour-long footage or big batches. For those, the desktop options above are the better fit. For a few clips you shot yourself, it saves a step. The details are in how to convert 30fps to 60fps on iPhone and making a normal video slow motion after recording.

FAQ

Written by punimaru, the developer of FrameFlo. App details are based on how the app is actually built. Since this is my own app, I’ve also noted where it isn’t the right tool and what else you can use.