Burn is a free, open-source optical disc authoring tool for macOS that lets you write data, audio, video, and mixed-mode projects to CDs and DVDs without paying a penny.
What is Burn?
Burn is a long-standing macOS utility that brings a clean, native interface to the business of creating optical discs — something Apple quietly de-emphasised once iDVD and iTunes disc burning were folded away. It handles data discs, audio CDs, video DVDs, and even the increasingly rare mixed-mode and CD-Extra formats through a straightforward tabbed layout that any Mac user will understand in under five minutes.
The project lives on SourceForge and has been maintained by volunteers for well over a decade, which is a quiet testament to how many people still need to put bits onto spinning plastic — whether for archival, client deliverables, or keeping an audio collection playable in a 2003 Honda Civic.
What does Burn do best?
Burn shines at audio CD creation — drag in your AIFF, MP3, FLAC, or Apple Lossless files, set track gaps and CD-TEXT, and you have a properly-authored Red Book audio disc that standalone players actually recognise.
Beyond audio, the Data tab lets you structure a hybrid HFS+/ISO 9660 disc for maximum compatibility, while the Video tab accepts DVD-compliant VOB structures if you already have an encoded VIDEO_TS folder sitting around. For anyone who has fumbled through Finder's built-in burn feature and found it too limited — no track ordering, no CD-TEXT, no video structure — Burn is the obvious next step without the cost of commercial software like Toast Titanium.
- Audio CDs with gapless playback, CD-TEXT metadata, and custom track sequencing
- Data discs in ISO, HFS+, or UDF formats with selectable compatibility targets
- Video DVDs from pre-encoded VIDEO_TS structures
- Disc images — mount, convert, or burn .iso, .img, .toast, .cue/.bin, and .dmg images directly
- Copy and erase — duplicate a disc or wipe a rewritable one without leaving the app
Is Burn free?
Burn is completely free to download and use — no trial nag, no feature wall, no subscription. It is open-source software distributed under the GPL, so the code is auditable and the price is zero, permanently.
The trade-off is that it is a volunteer project. Updates are infrequent, and while it runs on modern macOS, some rough edges (particularly around the UI on large Retina displays) remind you that this is community craftsmanship rather than a polished commercial product.
Who should use Burn?
Burn is the right choice for anyone who still needs to author physical discs on a Mac and does not want to spend money on Toast Titanium or wrestle with the spartan Finder burn folder. That audience is smaller than it once was — but it includes archivists burning data to M-DISC for longevity, musicians delivering masters on CD to studios or clients, educators preparing disc-based course materials, and retro enthusiasts burning game images to CD-R for original hardware.
If you burn discs more than once a month, Burn earns a permanent spot in your Utilities folder. If you burn a disc once a year, Finder's native burn folder is probably adequate.
How does Burn compare to Toast Titanium?
Toast Titanium is the power-user benchmark for Mac disc burning — it supports Blu-ray, has video encoding baked in, and receives regular paid updates. Burn covers none of that: no Blu-ray support, no transcoding engine, and a UI that has not been redesigned since the Aqua era.
What Burn has that Toast does not is a price tag of zero and no licence server to phone home to. For standard CD and DVD tasks — the 90 % case for most people — Burn gets the job done identically. If you need Blu-ray authoring or integrated video encoding, Toast is worth the spend. For everything else, Burn is the sensible frugal choice.
What are the best Burn alternatives?
On macOS, the practical alternatives are Toast Titanium (commercial, feature-rich, Blu-ray capable), Finder burn folders (built-in, extremely basic), and cdrdao or dvdauthor via Homebrew for command-line workflows. On other platforms, InfraRecorder (Windows) and Brasero (Linux/GNOME) occupy a similar niche. Burn's closest peer in spirit is the defunct Disco — both aimed at being the friendly free middle ground between Finder and Toast.
