Convert Movie(.mov) file to Gif(.gif) file in one command line in Mac Terminal

This note is written by Sheldon. You can find me with #iOSBySheldon in Github, Youtube, Facebook, etc.

Need

Convert .mov/.MP4 to .gif

Reason

As a developer, I feel better to upload a short video when I create the pull request to show other viewers what I did in this PR. I tried .mov format directly got after finishing recording screen using Quicktime, however, gif offers preview in most web pages, and has smaller file size.

This is not limited to developer, anyone has this need can use this method to convert the files.

Thoughts

I tried to use some software to do the job, but my hands are tied since I don't have admin in my office comupter, but I do have brew installed. And I think using command line tool will be a good choice. So I will use HomeBrew, ffmpeg, gifsicle to do the job.

Solution

download HomeBrew
$brew install ffmpeg
$brew install gifsicle
$ffmpeg -i in.mov -pix_fmt rgb8 -r 10 output.gif && gifsicle -O3 output.gif -o output.gif

Explanation

Convert the file to gif using ffmpeg

- input path argument `-i`
- pixel format argument `-pix_fmt`
- removing some frames using framerate argument `-r`
- end `ffmpeg` with new path/to/filename

Optimize the same output file with third option -O3 and rewrite the generated gif file from last step
Notes: using && to make sure the conversion sucess before optimizing

References

https://brew.sh
https://www.ffmpeg.org
https://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/
full video tutorial with explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKtRMFvvDL0

Simplify usage via a bash function

You can define the below function and add it to your .bashrc or the like for use at anytime:

function v2g() {
    src="" # required
    target="" # optional (defaults to source file name)
    resolution="" # optional (defaults to source video resolution)
    fps=10 # optional (defaults to 10 fps -- helps drop frames)

    while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
        if [[ $1 == *"--"* ]]; then
                param="${1/--/}"
                declare $param="$2"
        fi
        shift
    done

    if [[ -z $src ]]; then
        echo -e "\nPlease call 'v2g --src <source video file>' to run this command\n"
        return 1
    fi

    if [[ -z $target ]]; then
        target=$src
    fi

    basename=${target%.*}
    [[ ${#basename} = 0 ]] && basename=$target
    target="$basename.gif"

    if [[ -n $fps ]]; then
        # fps="-r $fps"
        fps=""
        echo "FPS is IGNORED for now"
    fi

    if [[ -n $resolution ]]; then
        resolution="-s $resolution"
    fi

    echo "ffmpeg -i "$src" -pix_fmt rgb8 $fps $resolution "$target" && gifsicle -O3 "$target" -o "$target""
    ffmpeg -i "$src" -pix_fmt rgb8 $fps $resolution "$target" && gifsicle -O3 "$target" -o "$target"
    osascript -e "display notification \"$target successfully converted and saved\" with title \"v2g complete\""
}

You can then call it as such

v2g --src orig.mp4 --target newname --resolution 800x400 --fps 30

jayliu50/Convert .mov or .MP4 to .gif.md