The Best AI Image Upscaler for Mac in 2026

Upscayl is the answer most people should try first. Its site describes it as free and open source, and its repository lists the AGPL-3.0 license and macOS 12 or later. It advertises enlargement of up to 16x. It is a desktop download rather than a web form, and the README’s GPU requirement points to the work happening on your own hardware.

The limits are practical ones. The README says you need a Vulkan-compatible GPU and that it will not work with most integrated GPUs or CPUs, so check your Mac before relying on it. It is an upscaler, so a photographer who needs to upscale, then shrink for the web, then strip location data will likely use other apps for those steps.

Upscayl also has a separate cloud product, which is a different thing from the free desktop app; read which one you are installing. If you only upscale now and then, you can stop reading here. See our Topaz Gigapixel alternatives page for more on how Upscayl compares with the paid options.

Smol upscales images 2x, 3x or 4x and writes the result as PNG, JPG or WebP. Everything runs on your own Mac: nothing is uploaded, and there is no account. You can drop a mixed folder in, see per-file progress, and use the same window to compress the enlarged files afterward, which matters because upscaled PNGs are large. It also reads camera RAW files as input, strips metadata as its own operation, and has a Finder Quick Action.

We do not claim Smol’s upscaler beats a dedicated one. It offers three factors and three output formats and nothing more, so a specialist app like Topaz Gigapixel is the better choice if you want to tune the upscale itself. Smol is also a Mac-only app (macOS 13 or later on Apple Silicon, macOS 14 or later on Intel), and it is not the fastest tool for plain batch jobs.

Pricing is $29 once for one Mac, with a Team pack at $49 for three Macs. There is no subscription, but there is also no free trial and purchases are not refundable, so if you are only after one upscale, use Upscayl. Smol is the better buy when you also want a compressor. For how it handles the compression side, see our best image compressor roundup.

Gigapixel is the dedicated upscaler on this list. Topaz’s pages describe local rendering with the line “Your files never leave your computer with local rendering,” plus an optional cloud rendering mode, and they claim upscaling up to 16x pixels. If upscaling is your job, a dedicated app is the sensible choice, and we would not tell a working photographer to swap it for a bundled feature.

The cost is the subscription. Topaz’s pricing page lists Gigapixel for Mac and PC at $149 a year, $29 a month, or $19 a month with an annual commitment, and it shows no perpetual license. The Gigapixel page lists macOS 12 through macOS 15. Neither page mentions a free trial, so check the site before assuming one.

For the background on the licensing change, read Topaz Gigapixel alternatives after the subscription switch.

Pixelmator Pro is an image editor first. Its Apple page says Super Resolution “analyzes your image and automatically scales up the resolution so it stays sharp,” so upscaling is one tool among layers, retouching and color work. If you already need an editor, it can be the cheapest way to get an upscaler in the same app.

Apple lists a one-time price of $49.99 for the Mac app, and a subscription through Apple Creator Studio at $12.99 a month or $129 a year, with a 30-day free trial for new subscribers. The page says the app runs on macOS 26, which rules out Macs that cannot run it. It also says some features need an internet connection, and it does not say whether Super Resolution runs on your device, so check before assuming the image stays on your Mac.

It is a heavier tool than the job calls for if you only want a batch upscaled, and it does not replace a dedicated upscaler’s range of models. Choose it for the editor, with the upscaler as a bonus.

Let’s Enhance is a web service, so there is nothing to install and it works on any Mac with a browser. Its pricing page lists 10 free credits on sign-up with no credit card, though free output is capped at 8 megapixels and carries a watermark. Paid plans are Starter at $9 a month billed annually (100 credits), Pro at $24 (300 credits) and Max at $34 (500 credits), with monthly billing costing more. One image is one credit, and the paid plans list output of up to 256, 350 and 512 megapixels respectively.

The trade-offs follow from being an online service: you work in credits, and your photos go through someone else’s servers. For client work under NDA or private family photos, a local tool is the safer default.

Preview is already on your Mac and can enlarge an image through Tools, then Adjust Size. It makes the pixel dimensions bigger by resampling rather than with an AI model, so a small photo scaled up a lot will look soft. For a screenshot that needs to be a little larger, or an image headed for a slide, that can be perfectly fine.

It is on the list because it is the honest free baseline: if a plain enlarge looks acceptable, you do not need any of the tools above. When it looks blurry, that is the moment to reach for Upscayl or a paid option.