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Madza
Madza

Posted on

How do you record GIFs?

Often in our DEV workflow we need to share the behavior of the app, report a bug, suggest a feature or just create a meme. Usually static screenshots are not enough, that's where GIFs come in.

Lately, I use this neat little tool called ScreenToGif.

What other alternatives would recommend considering the ease of access and edit options after the GIF has been captured?

Oldest comments (18)

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elirehema profile image
Elirehema Paul • Edited
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Phil Nash

It's not free, but I use Camtasia to create gifs and ImageOptim to make those gifs smaller.

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madza profile image
Madza

I use Camtasia for simple video editing.. Never did record any GIF with it, cause it's pretty slow at boot times and resource-heavy compared to ScreenToGif.
I should check out ImageOptim as I am still in search for some good compressor! Thanks for the recommendation!

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P.S. Napier

Nother' vote here for ScreenToGif. One of those tools I never knew I needed, but it's enabled me to painlessly integrate .gifs into my dev journals and on my discord game dev channel (users are much more engaged with my dev rambles now that they can see what I'm talking about!).

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Ben Halpern

I'm subscribed to this thread and looking for people's favorite Mac tools. I've yet to find one I really loved.

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Raunak Ramakrishnan

TIL dev.to has a subscribe for comments...

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Carlos Chacin ☕👽

I use LICEcap

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madza profile image
Madza

That's another tool I've used in the past :)

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Josef Biehler

Also my favorite tool for recording gif's :)

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Chris Schneider • Edited

For Linux, Peek is very easy to use and supports many output formats.

For other platforms recordit.co is great.

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Emeka Allison

I use LICEcap on Windows, it super lightweight and easy to use.

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John Peters

I like snagit.

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Saurabh Sharma

Peek, but I think it only works in linux

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Rafi • Edited

The funny things is mp4 files are smaller than gif so I use mp4 files instead of gif.

web.dev/replace-gifs-with-videos/

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madza profile image
Madza

GIF file type is associated with img files, so video files often might not be supported for image uploaders. Unless that's the case, use any format you like or convert it (extra work)

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Rafi • Edited

I meant when send screen recording of things to people I send it as mp4 instead of gif since the file size is smaller and also I usually record it as mp4. Except some cases where there is only gif preview and not video player in the app I sent it to them (usually github issues).

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Rodrigo Dominguez

CloudApp is an amazing tool, sometimes I share the gifs, some other times I also add voice and share the video

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Chris Chinchilla

Giffox or snagit right now