Update 01-28: As commenter John pointed out, in the app description, it mentions that background exports require an iPad with an M3 chip or higher, and iPadOS 26.

After being cited as a prime use case for iPadOS 26’s new Background Tasks API, Final Cut Pro has finally received its update to support exporting videos in the background.

When Final Cut Pro originally launched for iPadOS back in May of 2023, it was quickly noted the app had a key limitation of being able to continue exporting a video when you swiped away from the app. This was seemingly due to the more limited backgrounding apis that have been available on iPadOS and iOS that prioritize battery life over prolonged background execution.

As Apple continued to improve iPadOS, this got a little better. If you were using Stage Manager, you could switch to another app in the current Stage while the export continued, since technically the app wasn’t being backgrounded. Also, jf you were plugged into a display, you could let Final Cut continue its export on one screen, and do other work on the other display. Both of these solutions remained vulnerable to the needs of a more demanding app causing Final Cut to cancel its export, and not a substitute for a proper background task api.

Background exports are surfaced as Live Activities, which were introduced in iPadOS 17, which also you to monitor what tasks are running and cancel them if need be.

Background exports join other new features in Final Cut Pro 3.0 like Transcript Search and Montage Maker.