What’s New in Sibelius October 2025

Improved Licensing Flows, UI Color Improvements, Courtesy Time Signatures, and More

We’re excited to announce the immediate release of our October update to Sibelius (2025.10). This is our sixth release of the year, and it’s now available to all Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android^TM users.

In this release, we’re continuing our journey to simplify how you discover, download, install, and use Sibelius. We’ve also started aligning Sibelius within a larger Avid-wide design effort by introducing a lighter color scheme that makes Sibelius more accessible for all. Additionally, we’ve added new options for automatic courtesy time signatures—a feature that can be incredibly useful for large conductor scores with frequent changes of meter. Finally, no release would be complete without improvements and bug fixes based on customer reports.

So, without further ado, here is what you can expect to find in the 2025.10 version of Sibelius:

Sibelius First Things First

Sibelius First is our completely free version of Sibelius available on all platforms (Mac, Windows, Android, iPhone, iPad, and Chromebook) with no sign-up required and yours to download and keep forever. If you regularly use Sibelius Ultimate or Sibelius Artist and haven’t checked out Sibelius First, we’ve now made it easy for you to see just how capable it is with all the tiers.

On the status bar, simply click the name of the current tier (e.g. Sibelius Ultimate) and choose Sibelius First from the pop-up menu (you can return to Sibelius Ultimate via the same process). The entire Sibelius interface will then dynamically change to the Sibelius First feature set, no restart required.

Sibelius First can open any Sibelius score (all the way back to version 1!) for playback and printing, and as of our last release (2025.7), can edit any score with 8 staves or less! So, if you know someone just getting started with music notation, they can now access Sibelius First via a one-click download on our dedicated Sibelius First webpage: Sibelius First. Simply download, install, and run the application. No account required. It’s also easy and free to take your Sibelius scores on-the-go within the Sibelius for Mobile application.

Improved First Launch Experience

On first launch, new users will see a welcome screen and one of our example scores, so they can jump right into score editing and playback.

Note: When a user triggers a command that isn’t available in Sibelius First, they’ll receive a pop-up message offering a 30-day trial of Sibelius Ultimate. Clicking the option to start the trial will seamlessly transition Sibelius First into Sibelius Ultimate (again, no restart required).

Once the trial has ended, Sibelius will automatically revert back to Sibelius First. Thereafter, when the user attempts to access a feature not available within Sibelius First, they’ll see a newer-style dialog box with options to “Activate a License” or “Buy Online”.

More UI Cohesion and Color Contrast improvements

The new version of Sibelius contains our first color refresh since the 2022.3 release, along with several new icons on the ribbon and within the Backstage area (i.e. the File tab).

These color changes accomplish two things: Improve readability and contrast and bring more color cohesion throughout the interface. This follows an ongoing effort to align all of Avid’s creative tools on foundational design elements, so you can expect more exciting changes coming in support of this initiative.

This new update also slims down the minimum size of the inspector, leaving you with more screen space dedicated to your scores.

Licensing Flow Improvements

Sibelius 2025.10 retires our former “licensing flow” dialog and puts in place a minimal, no-fuss replacement. In the new licensing flow, if a license can't be found, Sibelius will simply launch into Sibelius First. You'll always have the option to activate Sibelius Artist or Sibelius Ultimate via the “Activate” button that appears in Sibelius First.

For those connecting a network license of Sibelius to the License Server, this option is now found in the Backstage (i.e. File tab) Help page.

New Engraving Rule: Courtesy Time Signatures

We’re excited to share that Sibelius 2025.10 adds a new Engraving Rule pertaining to Courtesy Time Signatures. Engravers will now have the ability to place a courtesy time signature at the beginning of each page or each spread in your score (even as the score layout dynamically changes). Following standard practice, this option is off by default. If you find yourself working with large scores that involve frequent changes of meter, you may find the new engraving rule useful.

Please note that the new engraving rule required a minor change to our file format. As a reminder, this means that you can still open files across Sibelius 2025.10 and previous versions, but the new engraving rule will only have a visible effect within the latest (and future) builds. The Sibelius for Mobile apps have also been updated to properly render scores that take advantage of the new engraving rule.

Trills and Other Lines

In response to user feedback, we’ve addressed a longstanding issue in which trills would “overshoot” the barline when the line terminated near the end of a bar. Newly added trills now remain within the bar in which they were added (like hairpins). Existing trill lines in your score won’t suddenly move—only newly added trills will be affected. We’ve also applied similar logic to other types of lines added via passage selections so that lines will now end in the bar in which they are placed.

New Launch Options

We’ve added a new launch option which allows Sibelius to launch to the most recently opened score by default. This matches the application launch behavior of Sibelius for Mobile and quickly gets you up and running on your current project with zero clicks when you launch the application. Existing users will need to opt-in to use the new preference, whereas new users will find that the “Open most recent score” option is the new default setting.

Avid Link

In the full installers on Windows and Mac, we’ve included the latest version of Avid Link (v2025.9.0). This includes a number of improvements and optimizations to several areas of the app, including restoring accessibility functionality.

More Improvements and Bug Fixes

• The Quick Start window once again has a resizable width (Mac only)
• We fixed a new Mac-only crash that occurred when users attempted to use the Focus on Staves feature
• When transposing rootless slash chords, Sibelius no longer fills in the root
• The Arrange feature no longer provides incorrect transpositions when using octave doubling (in certain cases)
• We fixed an issue that would cause “tuplet bracket placement / direction” to be momentarily drawn wrong after editing
• System Object Text Frames once again render with a light gray color (as opposed to black)
• The Playback Devices dialog will no longer disappear behind the main Sibelius window on Mac
• ManuScript now has read-write access to "Restore original item after single-bar selections" user preference
• The "Play Music" option now cohabitates with the rest of launch options in Sibelius First and Sibelius Artist
• Sibelius for Mobile on Android is now compiled with 16 KB native library alignment
• We fixed a legacy crash when closing a score after closing a newly created version

And that’s it for 2025.10! The entire Sibelius team is looking forward to hearing about how you get on with the new features across desktop and mobile. We’re already hard at work on the next release!

As a reminder, if you have a perpetual license with an active Upgrade Plan or a subscription, you can download the update now from your Avid account through the Products page. If you have an older version of Sibelius, you can upgrade to the latest through the Upgrade + Renew page.

If you’re new to Sibelius, you can begin composing today with a 30-day trial for Sibelius Ultimate. Visit the Sibelius homepage to start and find resources, check out the latest innovative features, and explore everything Sibelius has to offer.