Make Mac BetterHow to make a GIF from a video on a Mac
A GIF is perfect for showing a bug, a short tutorial or a reaction: it plays on its own and works almost anywhere. macOS has a way to make one, a little hidden.
Step by step
Trim the video first
Open it in QuickTime Player, press ⌘T and drag the yellow handles to keep only the seconds you need. A short clip makes a much lighter GIF.
Use the Shortcuts app
Open Shortcuts, go to the Gallery and search for “Make GIF”. Add the shortcut, run it and choose your video: it creates the GIF and lets you save it.
Or build your own shortcut
Create a shortcut with the actions “Select File” and “Make GIF”. In “Make GIF” you can set the seconds per frame and the size.
Check the weight
Look at the size in the Finder with ⌘I. If it is too heavy for where you want to send it, shorten the clip or reduce the width.
How do I choose the exact fragment, size and speed?
In Make Mac Better, Tools › Video to GIF shows the video with a bar to mark the start and end, and lets you set the frames per second and the width. The GIF is saved in a new folder and the video isn’t modified.
Why does my GIF weigh so much?
A GIF stores every frame as an image with few colours and almost no compression. Three things reduce it: fewer seconds, less width and fewer frames per second. 10 frames per second and 480 px wide are usually enough.
How do I make a GIF of my screen?
Record the area with ⇧⌘5 and convert that recording to GIF. It’s the quickest way to show a step in an app or a bug.
GIF or video?
For anything longer than a few seconds, a short MP4 looks better and weighs far less. Use GIF where video doesn’t play on its own: documentation, issues, some chats and emails.