Turn a screen recording into a GIF

GIFs autoplay in places video files don't: GitHub pull requests, README files, Notion docs and chat windows. ReelCap Pro exports a recording as a GIF right in the preview tab — capped at 720 px wide and 10–15 fps so the file stays small enough to actually post — and the conversion runs entirely in your browser.

Doing it without an extension

  1. 1Record your clip and download the video file.
  2. 2Upload it to an online video-to-GIF converter, or install ffmpeg and use its two-pass palette filters.
  3. 3Experiment with width, frame rate and colors until the file size is acceptable.
  4. 4Download the GIF and check it actually loops the way you expect.

Where that falls short

  • Online converters mean uploading your recording to a stranger's server — the opposite of recording locally.
  • GIF bloats fast: a naive conversion of a 30-second clip easily lands at tens of megabytes.
  • ffmpeg's palettegen/paletteuse incantation is famously hard to remember and easy to get wrong.

Doing it with ReelCap

  1. 1Record in ReelCap as usual and open the preview tab.
  2. 2Press Export GIF and pick a width and frame rate — the caps keep the file shareable.
  3. 3Wait a moment while your browser samples frames and encodes the GIF locally.
  4. 4Download it and drop it straight into the PR, doc or chat.

Every step happens in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and the export carries no watermark.

Questions about this

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Record your next demo in the next five minutes

Install the extension, open the tab you want to show, and press record. That's the whole setup.

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