After Effects (Beta) now on Apple Silicon

Report · Oct 26, 2021

We are very pleased to announce that a version of After Effects which runs natively on Apple silicon is now available for beta testing. Starting today in build 22.1.1.9, After Effects (Beta) will run natively on Macs that use the Apple M1 family of processors. You are invited to test it out and please let us know if anything isn't working as you expect. Please also try it out together with the latest Betas of Premiere Pro and Media Encoder. We are looking forward to hearing your feedback!

This first version of After Effects (Beta) for Apple silicon contains all the core functionality of the app, including nearly all native effects, all layer types, Roto Brush 2, Draft 3D, and, of course, Multi-Frame Rendering. After Effects has greatly benefited from the work done to bring Premiere Pro to Apple silicon, which included our team porting AE's render pipeline to support Motion Graphics Templates. Since After Effects and Premiere Pro share components for many media formats, you can expect to see the same media types available for use in After Effects (Beta) as are available in Premiere Pro on Apple silicon.

There are currently a few limitations and known issues when running After Effects (Beta) natively on Apple silicon which are listed below. We will post updates to this forum as these issues are fixed and new builds become available.

Features Not Yet Available

These features are still in the process of being ported for Apple silicon. All of the listed components should continue to work if After Effects (Beta) is run under Rosetta.

~~Content-Aware Fill for Video~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.2.0.99 and later
~~Importing Animate/Flash files~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.3.0.82 and later
Importing clips using the Cineform codec
~~Keylight~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.2.0.30 and later
~~Mocha AE~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.2.0.30 and later
~~Cineware~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.1.1.50 and later
~~C4D Renderer~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.1.1.50 and later

Third-Party Integrations

With the large number of plug-ins, scripts, and extensions available for After Effects, it is likley that some of them may not work when After Effects (Beta) is running natively on Apple silicon. In these cases, please contact the third-party developer to see if there is a new version available that has been updated for Apple silicon.

All third-party plug-ins must be updated by their developers in order to be compatible with After Effects running natively on Apple silicon. Third-party plug-ins that have already been ported for Apple silicon should show up and behave as expected. Incompatible plug-ins will not be available for use when After Effects (Beta) runs natively on Apple silicon and will appear as "Missing" when opening existing projects that use them. To use installed plug-ins that have not been updated, see the instructions below on how to run After Effects (Beta) under Rosetta 2 emulation.

Any installed plug-ins that aren't compatible with Apple silicon will be listed in a new dialog shown when After Effects (Beta) launches. You can disable this dialog by selecting "Never Again" before dismissing it. To show the dialog again after disabling it, reset the application preferences.

Known Issues

Drivers for Transmit hardware may be currently unsupported and require updates.
Rendering the Detail-preserving Upscale effect for previews and output will be slower than expected. Work to optimize the performance of Detail-preserving Upscale on Apple silicon is ongoing.
Having Blackmagic Desktop Video 12.1 installed can cause a crash when After Effects is launched. Please update Blackmagic Desktop Video to version 12.2 or higher to avoid this crash.

Running After Effects (Beta) under Rosetta 2 Emulation

As it has been up until now, this new version of After Effects (Beta) can still be run using Rosetta 2 emulation. Right-click on the Adobe After Effects (Beta).app, select Get Info, then enable "Open using Rosetta". This should allow you to use all of the features which are not yet available when running natively, but at the cost of some performance.

The non-beta version of After Effects will continue to run under Rosetta 2 on Apple silicon.

Thanks very much for participating in Adobe's Public Beta program. We appreciate your thoughts and feedback!

Report · Mar 28, 2022

I'm one of those people waiting on this release. That and Element 3D 3.

Report · Mar 29, 2022

same here

Report · Mar 29, 2022

I am looking to install AE Beta on my M1 Max MBP and there is no Beta tab even listed in my CC app. Only Aero Beta appears under "Apps to try" at the bottom of the main page. Please advise - thank you!

Report · Mar 29, 2022

It should be "Beta Apps" on the left hand side, under Catgories, the last item before Resource Links.

Report · Mar 29, 2022

(make sure you have selected "Apps" at the top left, rather than Files, Discover, or Stock&Marketplace)

Report · Mar 29, 2022

Yeah i can see it on my older MP in the app, but not on my M1. i thought i might be just missing a scroll bar but that is not the case - it is just absent from the menu (see screen grab)
thanks!

Report · Mar 29, 2022

Huh, that's strange, on my M1 mbp, on which I just recently manually reinstalled CC, I see Social Media instead of Creative Cloud Express, and I see the Beta Apps entry below Acrobat and PDF. Under About Creative Cloud, it tells me I am running version 5.6.5.58 Is your version older or newer than that?

Report · Mar 29, 2022

Hello, yes - my CC app reads 5.6.5.58 also.

I was running AE 22.2.1 but started encountering super strange bugs with AE / PRE (slow or dead performance with linking comps, menu bars not activating / disappearing, strange cursor /selection behavior with layers and type, severe latency with Keylight), random crashes.

I rolled back to version AE 22.2.0 - better, but still not experiencing the performance boost i had expected. Is Beta the best thing currently for M1 Max users? (If i could access the download?!)

@JohnColombo / anyone from Adobe please assist - thanks

Report · Apr 05, 2022

Hello, and thanks for answering the thread.
Testing the latest beta 22.4.0 (build 32) on an M1 Ultra 48-Core 128GB Ram and I have t main issues:

Mercuty GPU Acceleration (Metal) is weirldy much slower than Mercury Software only; is this part of the software being beta? I'm asking because the hardware acceleration should be much faster. Perhaps the metal implementation of the M1 Ultra still in development
Generally "poor" performance on the M1 Ultra. I didn't expect threadripper/3090ti performance here but I'm experiencing bad performance, especially with shape layers.

I'm very patient, so I don't mind waiting weeks, even months for things to be fixed.
I was just wondering if the team is aware of such things and if the relatively poor performance on the M1 Ultra is just linked to the current state of the beta.
I have gotten a 20-core (16 performance cores) specifically to take advantage of multi frame rendering; however it doesn't seem to be the case (for now).

Thank you very much for all the hard work; wish you the best.

Report · Apr 05, 2022

I'm also noticing that the preview struggles to update in real time, even with very simple files.

It often happens that it takes half a second to see the element I deleted actually disappearing.
From what I'm expperiencing the beta seems to struggle with anything GPU and preview related.
Could I have a confirmation from the development team?

If you require any additional diagnostics, or whatever's needed, please feel free to ask.
I'd love to help the development of this version.

Cheers,
Filippo.

Report · Apr 05, 2022

Report · Apr 05, 2022

I have never come across the same error on my M1 16GB Mac Mini.
There's something about the M1 Ultra, the current beta just doesn't seem to understand.
I thoroughly tested the computer with other software, and it works normally.

Report · Apr 05, 2022

Hi @Filippo Marchetti,

Thank you so much for posting about these issues on the M1 Ultra. In our testing, we have not seen the performance issues that you have reported, but it is possible that an issue has been introduced in recent Beta builds specifically on M1 Ultra hardware. Some additional information would help us to get a better sense of what might be going wrong:

What are the color depth and working space of the project?
Do you have display hardware acceleration enabled? This is toggled in Preferences > Display > Hardware Accelerate Composition, Footage, and Layer Panels.
Are you running AE natively or under Rosetta emulation? Does the performance get better or worse either running natively or under Rosetta?

If possible, a log file would also be helpful. Please enable logging via the following steps:

Select "Enable Logging" in the Help menu and restart After Effects.
Perform a few of the tasks that you've mentioned are not performing well, e.g. playback, adding/deleting layers, etc.
Select "Reveal Logging File" in the Help menu. This should open several Finder windows, but the one we need is in the "logs" folder of the After Effects (Beta) 22.4 preferences.
Please zip and share the After Effects (Beta) Log.txt that was revealed in step 3. Feel free to DM it to me if you would rather not post it here publically.

Thanks again for reporting this and for any additional information you can provide,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Apr 05, 2022

I have issues both on 8-bit and 16-bit comps.

Runnin After Effects Beta (always the very latest release), firstly because it makes the most sense, secondly because the Rosetta emulated version seemed to have started crashing on boot recently, both on my M1 Mac Mini 16GB and My 128GB Ultra.
I suspect something's horribly wrong with the latests betas, as I noticed a much greater instability, and consider I have been using every single release of the beta since it was launched in October so I'm hugely familiar with it.

For example now it is not able to exit normally as it shows this error upon quitting:
Each time I have to force quit it; it didn't happen in older beta releases.

Generally speaking, though, I'm experiencing quite a lot of spinnin beachballs, slow previews, and such.
It feels like I'm using a good 4cores/8threads CPU from 2016 rather than a 20cores machine from 2022.
Anyway I think the biggest problem is with GPU, as the things that use the GPU the most (some effects and the handling of shape layers) seem to suffer the most.

Anyway I'd suggest doing some intense testing on the M1 Ultra specifically, as I believe lots of people will get a machine like that to be used with After Effects, and I wouldn't want them to be sorely disappointed like I'm now.
With regards to log files, what would you like me to test specifically? (Is there a specific set of actions you'd like me to perform?)

Once again thanks for all the great work you're doing.

Report · Apr 08, 2022

Hi @Filippo Marchetti,

Thank you for those details. The crash on quit in "Scripting" is not something we have seen in our internal testing or elsewhere. Do you have any third-party scripts or extensions installed for use with the Beta version of AE?

In regards to actions to perform with logging enabled, please perform some of the actions you've mentioned as being slower than expected. Dragging layers in the comp and previewing footage or a composition should be enough for the log to show a clue about what is happening.

Thanks again for any further info you can offer,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Apr 10, 2022

I have had major issues using After Effects on the M1 Mac! I cannot download the Beta version of After Effects as it does not appear on my side panel. Also the projects I have been working on have not been able to render out (even when left for days). This is an on going issue and Adobe are offering to export my projects for me on their end. I would not recommend purchasing an M1 mac for high end video editing work as After Effects (contrary to what Adobe says) is NOT currently supported on the M1 mac and doesn't currently work for Rosetta 2. Can you please send a link so I can at least try the Beta version of After Effects?

Report · Apr 11, 2022

We've switched to DaVinci Resolve and Fuision Studio as both work very well on ther M1 Macs. I hope Adobe gets it together at some point, but for now production continues sans Adobe.

Report · Apr 11, 2022

Hi @Jen Farrow,

Thank you for making this report, and I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing issues with the release version. The current release version of After Effects ( 22.2.1 ) is still Intel-only, so the "Open with Rosetta" checkbox is not shown in the Get Info panel because it can only run under Rosetta on M1 devices. Only the Beta version currently has native support for Apple silicon/M1 devices.

To see about revealing the Beta app section of the sidebar, try this:

Open /Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBE/Configs
Remove or rename the ServiceConfig.xml file
Relaunch the Creative Cloud app once and see if the Beta apps category shows up

Please let us know if this allows the Beta apps to show up. If not, you may be in a location where Beta apps are currently not available.

May I ask who at Adobe is offering to render your projects for you?

Once again, I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing these frustrating issues. While After Effects under Rosetta on M1 is not as performant as After Effects (Beta) when it runs natively, we have not heard widespread reports of the kinds of performance issues you are mentioning. If you could provide more details ( screen recording, project file + assets, what third-party plug-ins/scripts are installed ), it would help us be able to diagnose the problems you're experiencing.

Thanks again for reporting and for any further information you can offer,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Apr 11, 2022

Is there any documentation that tells developers how to upgrade their Mac plugins? I haven't found any details in the AE SDK documentation.

Report · Apr 11, 2022

Aha! I found the documentation:

https://ae-plugins.docsforadobe.dev/intro/apple-silicon-support.html#intro-apple-silicon-support

Report · May 14, 2022

when i do it it doesnt show the rosetta it just says folder or locked, ive done everything, someone please help.

Report · May 16, 2022

Hi Tiffany, AfterEffects for M1 is out of beta now: you don't need Rosetta anymore, unless you have old Intel-only plugins. See the announcement on Adobe Blog or download the 22.3 and 22.4 update from your Creative Cloud app.

Report · Sep 01, 2022

I'm enjoying the beta version immensly! Problem I'm running into is switching between beta and the latest cc version of AE. I can't share any of my files with the rest of the team because they don't have beta installed and can't install it. (They use a regular windows computer) I used to be able to switch between the two but after one of the updates I can no longer do it.
Any advice?

Report · Sep 01, 2022

I'm enjoying the beta version immensly! Problem I'm running into is switching between beta and the latest cc version of AE. I can't share any of my files with the rest of the team because they don't have beta installed and can't install it. (They use a regular windows computer) I used to be able to switch between the two but after one of the updates I can no longer do it.
Any advice?

By @fraidym94034590

Same here! Used to be able to exchange between the two and now it doesn't work. The new stable version is better but still a ton of memory leak issues!

Report · Sep 01, 2022

Hi @fraidym94034590,

Glad to hear you're enjoying the Beta version! In order to share files between the current Beta and the most recent release version in CC, you'll need to use File > Save As... > Save a Copy as 22.x...

More details on this are available here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-beta-discussions/announcement-after-effects-23-0-and-pr...

Thanks for using After Effects (Beta),

- John, After Effects Engineering Team