How to create a Screencast GIF

Capture a Screencast Movie

macOS since 10.14 (Mojave) has an App called Screenshot. You can start it like any other App but the usual way is to use the keyboard shortcuts

This will bring a Toolbar and a selection box to define the part of the screen which needs to be captured.

1. move and resize the selection box
2. click the record video button on the toolbar
3. start with the recording

If you own a MacBook with a touchbar, you might find it handy to use it to control the recording.

Now klick on the small dumbnail preview of the recording to open the screenshot editor.

You can preview and check your recording. If you need to trim the video, click on the symbol on the top.

Finish your changes with a click on “Finish” and your recordings will be saved on the place you defined for your screenshots. The default place is the desktop but with dropbox installed in can also be inside your dropbox.

Converting Movie to animated GIF

requirements: ffmpeg

you can install ffmpeg with brew install ffmpeg ( brew installer if you have not used before)

conversion:

1. Create a palette image from the video:

ffmpeg -y -i in.mov -vf fps=10,palettegen palette.png

2. Convert into a GIF using the palette

ffmpeg -i in.mov -i palette.png -filter_complex “fps=10,paletteuse” out.gif

Video converted to animated GIF [out.gif]

If you prefer to use an App and do not like to use the command line I would recommend the free Gifski App from the Apple Appstore.

Originally published at https://www.heissenberger.at.