ScreenToGif

Automatically converts screen recordings into gifs.

Prerequisites

You'll need Node.js and Brew to get started. You'll also need zsh but it comes pre-installed with the latest version of MacOS so you should be all set.

The installer will install ffmpeg and gifski-api on your computer.

It will then watch the directory used by MacOS to save screen recordings and encode any new .mov file into a gif.

Installation

1. Download the repo content
2. Open your terminal
3. Run the installation program:

cd screen-to-gif;
./install.zsh

Usage

The install script will use launchctl to register a directory watcher.

To see it in action:

1. Use Command + Shift + 5
2. Move the record area
3. Click on the Record button
4. Use the Stop recording icon that appeared in your top bar (more infos about recording your screen here)
5. Open your Screenshots folder
6. Wait a few seconds for the script to be able to convert the movie to gif
7. Enjoy your gif.

Limitations

The goal of this app is to allow you to drop a quick screen record to Github, because Github doesn't allow you to drop a movie in the description.

This is the reason why the gif won't have a good quality: it will be smaller in size.

We use these limitations by default:

• quality : 10%
• fps: 20
• width: 800px

If you wish to change these settings, search for 800 in the file templates/screenToGif.js, edit as need, then run ./install.zsh again.

Troubleshooting

To see the logs of the app:

1. Open a terminal
2. type the following command:

tail -f /tmp/screenToGif.out

3. Record the screen to see it in action

To see the errors of the app:

1. Open a terminal
2. type the following command:

tail -f /tmp/screenToGif.err

3. Change anything in the Screenshots folder to see any potential error with the script.

Uninstallation

Run the uninstall script from the downloaded directory:

./uninstall.zsh

License

ScreenToGif is GNU licensed, as found in the LICENSE file.