This gist shows how to create a GIF screencast using only free OS X tools: QuickTime, ffmpeg, and gifsicle.
To capture the video (filesize: 19MB), using the free "QuickTime Player" application:
- Open "Quicktime Player",
- Go to File -> New Screen Recording
- Selected screen portion by dragging a rectangle, recorded 13 second video.
- Go to File -> Export -> As Movie
- Saved the video in full quality with the filename
in.mov
- Saved the video in full quality with the filename
To convert in.mov into out.gif (filesize: 48KB), open Terminal to the folder with in.mov
and run the following command:
ffmpeg -i in.mov -s 600x400 -pix_fmt rgb24 -r 10 -f gif - | gifsicle --optimize=3 --delay=3 > out.gif
Notes on the arguments:
-r 10
tells ffmpeg to reduce the frame rate from 25 fps to 10-s 600x400
tells ffmpeg the max-width and max-height--delay=3
tells gifsicle to delay 30ms between each gif--optimize=3
requests that gifsicle use the slowest/most file-size optimization
To share the new GIF using Dropbox and Copy Public URL, run the following:
cp out.gif ~/Dropbox/Public/screenshots/Screencast-`date +"%Y.%m.%d-%H.%M"`.gif
The conversion process requires the following command-line tools:
- ffmpeg to process the video file
- gifsicle to create and optimize the an animated gif
If you use homebrew and homebrew-cask software packages, just type this in:
brew install ffmpeg
brew cask install x-quartz #dependency for gifsicle, only required for mountain-lion and above
open /usr/local/Cellar/x-quartz/2.7.4/XQuartz.pkg # runs the XQuartz installer
brew install gifsicle
- http://schneems.com/post/41104255619/use-gifs-in-your-pull-request-for-good-not-evil (primary source!)
- http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/16zu7d/use_gifs_in_your_pull_requests_for_good_not_evil/
- http://superuser.com/questions/436056/how-can-i-get-ffmpeg-to-convert-a-mov-to-a-gif#_=_
- http://gnuski.blogspot.ca/2012/06/creating-animate-gif-with-free-software.html
- Extend https://github.com/dergachev/copy-public-url folder action for this use case
- it would automate the conversion before copying Dropbox public URL
- assign the folder action to ~/Dropbox/Public/Screenshots/gif
- consider finding a way to simplify the dependency installation