Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac: An iDVD-Style Blu-ray and DVD Burner for Today's Macs
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac is a $39.95-a-year (or $59.95 lifetime) macOS program that burns your videos and photo slideshows to Blu-ray discs and DVDs, with menus, and can also save them as disc folders or ISO images. The license includes DVD Creator, it runs on Intel and Apple silicon Macs with macOS 10.13 or later, and it's for Mac users who still need to hand someone a disc that plays in a TV's player.
Apple stopped selling iDVD and DVD Studio Pro years ago, and macOS has nothing that authors a video Blu-ray. That gap is exactly what Mac buyers on Leawo's review page talk about. One wrote that it's "the best one I have come across since Apple Deserted us videographers by taking away our lollies in iDVD and Apple DVD Pro."
Quick facts
- Program: the Burn tab of Leawo Prof. Media for Mac 13.0.8 (updated June 2026)
- Download: 241 MB Intel DMG or 316 MB native Apple silicon DMG
- macOS: 10.13 High Sierra up to macOS 26 Tahoe and macOS 27
- Burns: BD-25 and BD-50 Blu-rays, DVD-5 and DVD-9 DVDs, or the same as a folder or ISO
- Accepts: about 30 video formats including MP4, MOV, M4V, MKV, AVI and AVCHD (MTS/M2TS), plus JPG, PNG and BMP photos and existing ISO images
- License: Blu-ray Creator and DVD Creator for one Mac, $39.95 a year or $59.95 lifetime
- Trial: full features, but only the first 5 minutes of content are burned
- Developer: Leawo Software Co., Ltd.
- What we checked: Leawo's Mac version feed (Prof. Media for Mac 13.0.8 with a native Apple silicon build), the Intel and Apple silicon DMGs on Leawo's server (252,961,353 and 331,793,186 bytes), the Mac spec sheet and trial limit, the 16 reviews on Leawo's Mac review page, and the order page for "Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac": $39.95 for one year (auto-renewal unticked, renewal quoted at $23.97) and $59.95 lifetime, on November 1, 2026. We didn't burn a disc on a Mac.
Before you buy
- Blu-ray needs a Blu-ray writer. No Mac has one built in, and Apple's SuperDrive only handles CDs and DVDs, so plan on an external USB Blu-ray burner for BD discs. DVDs burn on any DVD writer.
- It's an authoring tool, not a copier. It makes new discs from your own files. Copying a store-bought movie disc is Leawo Blu-ray Copy's job.
- No 4K Ultra HD discs. Burning UHD Blu-rays takes Leawo UHD Creator.
- Get the Mac edition. Mac and Windows licenses are separate, and Leawo doesn't refund the wrong product bought by mistake.
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Overview
On a Mac, Blu-ray Creator is the Burn tab of Leawo Prof. Media. The layout will feel familiar to anyone who used iDVD: your clips in a list on the left, menu templates in a column on the right, and three drop-downs along the bottom for disc type, quality and aspect ratio, next to a bar that fills up as you add footage. A green Burn button opens the output panel.
The Burn tab of Prof. Media on a Mac, empty: the Add Video menu (Add Video File, Add Video Folder, Add iso file), Add Photo, the Built-in, Online and Custom template tabs with No Menu selected, and DVD-5, Fit to disc and 16:9 at the bottom. Older Mac version from Leawo's 2018 Mac guide.
Features
Menu templates, more online, or your own design
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac offers more than 40 disc menu templates in eight themes, from Wedding and Holiday to Sports and Education. Some are built in and the rest download from the Online tab when you pick them. The menu designer lets you set your own background picture, video or music, move and restyle the titles, and keep the result as a Custom template. Choose No Menu when the disc should simply start playing.
One clip (1:48, 121.39 MB) loaded on a Mac, with its subtitle and audio menus, and the Online template tab showing downloadable Graduation and Valentine's Day menus (older Mac version).
Chapters set automatically or by hand
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac can split a video into chapters by a total number or by length, or let you set chapter points one at a time, and it keeps the chapters already in MP4, MKV and Blu-ray sources. That matters on the Mac, because the lack of chapter points inside a clip was the most common complaint in Mac users' older reviews.
An editor for each clip, 3D included
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac has a per-clip editor with tabs for Trim, Watermark, Crop, Effect (brightness, contrast, saturation), 3D and Remove Noise. The 3D tab turns 2D footage into Red/Cyan, Red/Green, Red/Blue, Blue/Yellow, Interleaved or Side-by-Side 3D with a depth setting. Each tab has its own preview.
The editor on a Mac: Trim, Watermark, Crop, Effect, 3D and Remove Noise tabs down the left, an Output Preview, and start time, end time and clip length fields (older Mac version).
Photo slideshows from your Photos exports
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac turns JPG, PNG or BMP pictures into a disc slideshow. You add, remove and reorder pictures, choose the transition effect and add background music. Export the album from the Photos app as JPEGs first, since the slideshow tool lists only those image types.
Disc, folder and ISO in one go
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac's output panel has Folder and ISO File boxes plus your burner, so you can burn a disc and keep an ISO for reprints at the same time. It shows the disk space required next to what's free. It also burns an existing ISO to a blank disc.
The burn panel on a Mac: Burn to Folder ticked, ISO File and a disc drive as other targets, a date-stamped disc label, Save to set to the Desktop, and 256.15 MB required against 896.02 GB free (older Mac version).
Benefits
- Your Mac does the whole job. No Windows PC, no Boot Camp, no chaining Toast with a separate encoder.
- Clients and grandparents get a disc that just plays. A menu and chapters make a two-hour video easy to navigate on a TV remote.
- Two burners for one price. DVD Creator comes in the same license, for players that don't take Blu-rays.
- Reprints are easy. Keep the ISO, and the next order for the same disc takes a few minutes.
Real-World Uses
- A wedding videographer on a MacBook Pro delivering a menu-driven Blu-ray for the couple and DVD copies for relatives.
- A school play or recital filmed on an iPhone, cut in iMovie or Final Cut Pro, exported to MP4 and burned for every family.
- A holiday slideshow of exported photos with music, played on the big TV.
- Old camcorder clips (AVCHD .MTS files) put onto a Blu-ray for the archive shelf.
Who It's For, and Who Should Skip It
It fits Mac users who used to rely on iDVD, small video businesses that still sell discs, and families who want home movies on a disc, with menus, without learning professional authoring.
Skip it if:
- Nobody you share with owns a disc player. A shared Photos album or a USB stick is simpler.
- You need pro authoring: pop-up menus, multiple angles, or exact control over bit rates and two-pass encoding. Mac reviewers asked for these and the program is built for simplicity.
- You want to copy commercial discs. That's Blu-ray Copy, not Creator.
- You need 4K Ultra HD discs. Leawo UHD Creator covers those.
Usage Guide
- Install. Pick "Mac with Apple Chip" or "Mac with Intel Chip" on Leawo's download page, drag Leawo Prof. Media to Applications and open it. Connect your burner.
- Open the Burn tab and click Add Video (a file, a folder or an ISO) or Add Photo, or drag files onto the window.
- Edit if needed. Click the edit icon on a clip to trim, crop, add a watermark or make it 3D.
- Choose a menu from Built-in, Online or Custom, or No Menu. Click a template to preview and edit it.
- Set the disc at the bottom left: BD-25, BD-50, DVD-5 or DVD-9, the quality, and the aspect ratio.
- Burn. Click the green Burn button, tick your burner, Folder and/or ISO File, name the disc, choose Save to, and click Burn at the bottom of the panel.
- Register through Help > Activate in the Mac menu bar to lift the 5-minute limit.
Tips from Mac users
- Match the frame rates. A Mac reviewer found that a 24p source keeps its 24p frame rate on the Blu-ray, but clips with a different frame rate from the first one you add play jerkily. Export everything from Final Cut or iMovie at the same rate.
- Use Medium or High quality. The same reviewer saw blocky video at the Low bit-rate setting.
- Use a high-resolution menu background. Another reviewer found photo backgrounds came out "pretty pixelated".
- Burn an AVCHD DVD with Disk Utility. One reviewer's workaround for a short HD disc on a DVD: save a Blu-ray ISO at Low quality, then burn the ISO with Disk Utility.
Where it falls short
- No project saving. Several Mac reviewers had to rebuild a disc from scratch after a crash or for a reorder. Leawo's current feature list mentions saving custom menu templates but not saving a whole project.
- Audio limits in older versions. Earlier Mac reviews complained of stereo-only output and one audio track per title. Leawo's current pages don't say whether 5.1 passthrough or several selectable tracks are supported now, so test with your own footage.
- Consumer-level menus. Reviewers called the menus "utilitarian", wanted snapping guides in the designer, custom thumbnails, and a way to skip the main menu.
- Menu preview aspect ratio. An early reviewer found the design view didn't show 16:9 correctly. It's from 2013 and may be fixed, but preview a test disc before a client job.
- Few recent Mac reviews. The newest review on Leawo's Mac page is from 2019, years before the Apple silicon build.
What Users Say
Leawo's review page for the Mac edition is the best source here, and it's moderated by Leawo. It holds 16 reviews averaging 4.5 out of 5: 10 five-star, 5 four-star and one two-star. Most date from 2013 to 2019, and the detailed ones mix praise with long wish lists. Two reviews in Spanish and Italian are left out below.
The iDVD replacement
"As others have said nothing worked as well as IDVD and DVD studio pro for Mac. So far this software has been stable and yields good results. My wish list is for chapter creation for a single video and button creation options." Chris Sabold, 4 stars, March 2019
"This is something that was DESPERATELY needed for Macs as there is virtually nothing out there outside of Roxio Toast and Compressor for blu-ray authoring and encoding. Plus (toast and compressor) don't handle certain types of media very well (such as .MKV files)" Damon Packard, 5 stars, May 2013. He added: "the menu displays (in design modes) do not display the correct aspect ratio - or 16x9 at all."
"Anyone who's used the much missed iDVD in the past will surely feel like they're in familiar territory. Blu-ray Creator is intuitive, simple, almost ridiculously easy to use, but here's the real important point.... IT ACTUALLY WORKS and works WELL!" allan, 4 stars, December 2013, who also noted: "The final Blu-ray burn will indeed perfectly preserve the original 24p frame-rate of a source video shot at 24fps progressive. This is something even Toast can't claim!"
The criticism
"The program is nice and easy to use, however, there are some drawbacks." She went on: "The other major drawback is not being able to save a project. I've recreated the same disc project four times trying to get it right. Most recently, I had to start over because when I was trimming down to the very last clip it froze and I had to force quit." Lee Ann Obringer, 4 stars, April 2014
"There is a serious need for a snapping tool when designing menus. I had to temporarily insert a JPEG of a grid as the background just to line the video and text boxes together" James, 4 stars, August 2013. Leawo replied that the suggestions had been passed to its product manager.
"Who wants to watch a blu ray in stereo and not the surround sound tracks on the original disk. Once they fix this issue this will be 5 star software" anthony, 2 stars, January 2013
"I too wish I could save my work for future use as my wedding clients often add orders later for additional disks." Andrew, 4 stars, April 2017
Trustpilot (Leawo as a company: 4.4 TrustScore, 151 reviews for leawo.org)
Trustpilot covers all of Leawo's products. One Mac review names this one: in November 2014 Oliver described "some problems with my new Leawo "Blue-Ray Creator" and "Blu-Ray Copy" under Mac OS 10.10", then concluded "Great products with outstanding support, therefore I can definitely recommend the purchase!"
The recurring themes
Mac users value it as the closest thing to iDVD that also does Blu-ray, praise how easy it is, its MKV support and encoding speed, and a fair price. The wish list repeats: save a project, chapters inside a clip (now in Leawo's feature list), surround sound, and more menu control. The reviews are old, so treat them as history and check the current build in the trial.
Comparisons
Mac edition vs Windows edition
Both editions share the same Burn tab, templates, editor and prices ($39.95 a year, $59.95 lifetime, DVD Creator included). The Mac edition comes as separate Intel and Apple silicon builds, and Leawo lists Apple M1/M2 chips in its Mac requirements. Licenses are tied to the platform you buy.
Blu-ray Creator vs DVD Creator for Mac
DVD Creator for Mac burns DVDs only and costs less. Blu-ray Creator includes DVD Creator, so if you might ever want an HD disc, it's the better buy.
Blu-ray Creator vs Roxio Toast
Toast is the other long-standing Mac burning suite. Leawo's Mac reviewers chose Blu-ray Creator for its simpler menu workflow and its handling of MKV files, while noting Toast saves whole projects, something Blu-ray Creator still lacks.
Editions and Pricing
| Mac license |
Price |
Term |
Modules |
Money-back period listed |
| Blu-ray Creator for Mac, 1 Year |
$39.95 |
One year, one Mac (renewal quoted at $23.97) |
Blu-ray Creator, DVD Creator |
5 days |
| Blu-ray Creator for Mac, Lifetime |
$59.95 |
One-time payment, one Mac |
Blu-ray Creator, DVD Creator |
14 days |
| Blu-ray Creator + Video Converter, Lifetime |
$69.92 |
One-time payment, one computer |
Blu-ray Creator, DVD Creator, Video Converter |
14 days |
The lifetime license costs $20 more than one year, and less than a year plus one renewal ($63.92), so it's the sensible choice for anyone who burns discs regularly.
FAQs
Can Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac burn videos straight from iMovie or Final Cut Pro?
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac works from exported files, not from a Final Cut or iMovie project. Export your edit as an MP4 or MOV file (a Mac reviewer used ProRes 422 HQ exports from Premiere Pro), then add it with Add Video.
Does Leawo Blu-ray Creator run natively on M1, M2, M3 and M4 Macs?
Yes. Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac comes in Prof. Media for Mac, which has a native Apple silicon DMG alongside the Intel one.
Will a Blu-ray made with Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac play in a normal Blu-ray player?
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac writes standard BD-25 or BD-50 Blu-ray structures meant for standalone players. Burn one test disc and try it in the player you're targeting before making a batch, since blank media and older players vary.
Can I add SRT subtitles to a disc with Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac?
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac supports adding SRT subtitles, according to Leawo's reply to a Mac user in 2013, and each loaded clip has its own subtitle menu. A 2013 Mac reviewer described the subtitles as hard-encoded into the picture, not a track you can switch off.
What does the Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac trial leave out?
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac's trial has every feature, but it converts only the first 5 minutes of content, so you can test menus, quality and playback without burning a full film.
Which languages does the Mac interface support?
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac lists 12 interface languages: English, German, Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Russian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian and Danish.
System Requirements
- macOS: 10.13 High Sierra, 10.14 Mojave, 10.15 Catalina, 11 Big Sur, 12 Monterey, 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, 15 Sequoia, 26 Tahoe, 27
- Processor: 1 GHz or faster Intel, or Apple M1/M2 (native Apple silicon build available)
- Memory: at least 512 MB RAM
- Free disk space: 5 GB or more for DVD, 25 GB or more for Blu-ray
- Drive: a recordable Blu-ray drive for Blu-ray discs (a DVD writer for DVDs)
- Other: Internet connection, which also downloads the Online menu templates
- Download: 241 MB (Intel) or 316 MB (Apple silicon)
Conclusion
Leawo Blu-ray Creator for Mac is worth it for Mac users who still deliver video on disc and miss iDVD. It authors Blu-rays and DVDs with menus, chapters and slideshows from the files your Mac already makes, natively on Apple silicon, and the lifetime license at $59.95 is cheap for what it replaces.
The one reason to buy it: there are very few simple ways left to make a menu-driven Blu-ray on a Mac, and this is one that Mac users have praised for years. The main reason not to: it's a consumer tool with no project saving, limited menu control and, as far as Leawo's pages show, no confirmed surround-sound passthrough, and the Mac reviews are old. Burn a 5-minute test disc in the trial and play it on the target player before you pay.
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