macOS offers a tool to remove backgrounds from images

Written by Stefan Judis
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This post is part of my Today I learned series in which I share all my web development learnings.

The following discovery passed my social feed, and I'm still super excited about this hidden macOS gem.

I do a lot of YT thumbnails these days and usually use remove.bg to remove backgrounds from pictures. But this feature is natively included in macOS these days! 😲

macOS background removal via Quick Actions

I don't follow all the new OS features because I'm not entirely bought into the Apple universe and am very happy with all my workflows.

But removing backgrounds is a super handy feature! It's a little odd to have this functionality on an operating system level, though. What will be next? Removing background noise from audio files? Cut prepare images for social sharing? I have no clue, but I'd be game for all of these. ;)

I didn't check when this feature was added to macOS, but the video shows Ventura 13.1.

Edit: It turns out the background removal feature is also available in the Mac Preview app! 👏

macOS "Preview" app menu showing the "Remove background" command

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Stefan standing in the park in front of a green background

Frontend nerd with over ten years of experience, "Today I Learned" blogger, conference speaker, Tiny helpers maintainer, and DevRel at Checkly.