Top 11 DVD Burning Software for a Mac

If you want to burn home movies or other video files onto DVD discs to share with friends or watch on your own TV or play in a DVD player, you'll need to make use of DVD-burning software for Mac. This guide will look at some of the best DVD burners for a Mac you can use to help you pick the perfect program.

In this post, we'll take a look at the best DVD burning software for Mac. Some of them may be easy to use, others may offer powerful features, but all of them are worthy of being on this list for one reason or another. Because of that, the DVD burners listed below are presented in no particular order. Since everyone's needs and preferences are different, the best way to find the right product for you is to pick the ones that sound appealing, read the reviews, and download the software.

Operating system: Every version of macOS

Finder is a default, built-in piece of software that comes with every Mac device and has been around since the earliest iteration of the Macintosh operating system. It's used for finding and managing applications, files, and disks, offering a lot of everyday utility for Mac users. It's also a DVD burner and ripper, and it's one of the simplest options for burning discs with your Mac.

Pros:

• Built-in with every Mac – no downloads needed

• Very easy to use, even for total beginners

Cons:

• Only works with burning data DVDs

• Lacks editing options or other features

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.5 and up

iSkysoft DVD Creator for Mac has a number of powerful features that go beyond simple burning of DVDs. You'll be able to create slideshows, add audio tracks, and craft a compelling menu from a selection of professionally designed templates. Before burning your video, you can rotate, crop, flip and adjust the color values in it. The DVD burner software for a Mac can burn your final DVD to disk, but it can also save it as a DVD folder or an ISO file for watching on a modern MacBook Pro or another computer without a DVD drive.

Pros:

• Templates make creating DVDs easy and quick

• Burning to DVD Folder and ISO frees you from the DVD drive

Cons:

• Design options are limited if you want to stray from the templates

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.9 and up

Burn can be used for authoring just about any kind of disk you'd like. In addition to DVDs, you'll be able to burn regular audio CDs, MP3 CDs, DVD audio discs, video CDs, and more. The software is available for Apple computers only, so if you have a Windows computer that you'd like to have the same software on, look elsewhere.

Pros:

• Free, open-source software

• Simple to use

Cons:

• Not a lot of customization options

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.5 and up

LuqidCD is a handy app to burn a DVD on a Mac. This piece of software is similar to Burn. They are both designed to be easy to use without the frills that would require a more complicated program. LiquidCD can burn to an impressive number of disk formats and read from almost any format you need it to. The software is free to use but is not open-source.

Pros:

• Can burn to a large number of formats

• Free

Cons:

• Can be buggy at times

• Not a lot of advanced options

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.5 and up

You won't find a download for OS X on the Bombono site but the open-source software compiles easily on Mac OS X if you are technically inclined. For that reason, we have not listed a minimum version number for OS X here. The software has a nice timeline viewer that makes editing your DVDs much easier.

Pros:

• Free and open-source

• Features a simple timeline editor

Cons:

• It must be built from the source code

• Not updated in a while

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.10 and up

This DVD burning software for Macintosh can read from all of the major formats and offers a nice set of features for customizing your DVD menus to look exactly the way you want them to. It offers a number of features for editing your video, such as the ability to trim, crop, change the color, or add background music to the video.

Pros:

• It has some powerful editing features

• Easy to customize menus

Cons:

• Some videos compressed for DVD-5 can have poor quality

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.4.3 and up

This is one of the more unique DVD writers on the list. It has a feature called discography that lets you search through all of the files that you have ever burned using the program. This can make Disco a key component in a backup strategy that involves burning your files to DVD. This software features an attractive interface. Disco is now free to download after being officially discontinued in 2011.

Pros:

• Free to use

• Unique 'Discography' feature allows for searching through all of the files you've burned

Cons:

• Hasn't been actively developed since 2011

• Less powerful menu creation that some of the other options

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.4 and up

As the name implies, this older program is designed to be simple to use. Like many of the more simple options, it lacks some of the customization options that more full-featured software has. The software hasn't been updated in a while, but the author has mentioned that a new, 64-bit, version of the software is on the way.

Pros:

• Free and open-source

• Easy to use

Cons:

• It hasn't been updated in a while

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.1 and up

DVD Styler is an open-source program licensed under the GNU GPL license. The program is designed to make styling DVD menus easier, so it has a nice set of features in that area. You can create your own menu from the impressive set of tools or select one from a set of templates. When you install it from a binary, it will ask you to install an ad-supported toolbar, although you can opt-out of that.

Pros:

• Free and open-source

• Plenty of customization options

Cons:

• Not as many features as some of the other options

• Asks to install a toolbar for ads

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.5 and up

Express Burn has a free version available for non-commercial use, but it can only be used for making audio CDs. The paid version allows for burning DVD though and has some nice features. It can burn to CDs, DVDs, or Blu-ray and allows you to create and manage the chapters for your DVD menus. For many tasks, the software features a simple drag and drop functionality.

Pros:

• It is easy to use

• It allows for chapter creation

Cons:

• It cannot bypass copy protections when copying DVDs or Blu-rays

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.11 and up

Roxio Toast is one of the most popular burn apps for Mac. It allows you to encrypt that data burned onto your discs using AES-256 bit encryption. It has features for capturing and editing video within the software itself to save you some steps. Toast also features the ability to recover lost files from damaged disks and will let you know what files could not be recovered.

Pros:

• More advanced capture and edit than other programs

• Powerful tools for creating menus and chapters

Cons:

• More expensive than others

We hope that this article has helped you find the right freeware or paid program to burn DVDs on your Mac. If you need any extra help, here are some key factors to think about when choosing the right app:

• OS: You need to make sure that the app you want to use is compatible with your version of macOS (or Windows, if you're using a PC).

• Ease-of-use: A good burner app should be easy to use and simple to understand, especially if you're a beginner and don't have much experience with ripping, looping, and burning programs.

• Features: Think about what kinds of features your app has. Some apps can do much more than burn DVDs. They can compress HD files, rip files, loop clips, add subtitles, and more.

• Speed: Burner apps can also differ in terms of speed. The fastest apps deliver rapid performance and are ideal when you want to burn multiple discs fast.

• Security: If you want your files and discs to be encrypted and protected, find a program with good security and encryption.