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Updated

How to Turn a Screen Recording into a GIF on Mac

With Gifski

  1. Press ShiftCommand5, and click “Record Selected Portion” in the toolbar.
  2. Drag the borders of the selection to the area that you want, and click “Record”.
  3. To stop, click the stop button in the menu bar, or press ControlCommandEsc. By default, the recording is saved to the desktop.
  4. Open Gifski, and drop the recording on its window, or click “Open”.
  5. Trim the start and the end, and set the dimensions and the frame rate.
  6. Click “Convert”, and then “Save”.

Tips

  • Record only the area that you need. A small area makes a small GIF, and you can still crop the video in Gifski.
  • A GIF of the screen often looks good at 10 to 15 frames per second, which makes the file much smaller.
  • Gifski shows the estimated file size before you convert.

For a video that is not a screen recording, see how to convert a video to a GIF.

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Free

Platform
macOS
Requires
macOS 26 or later
Category
Photo & Video
Released
February 2018
Privacy
No personal data collected
Updated
September 2026
Version
3.0.6
Size
6 MB

More about Gifski

Without an app

The screenshot toolbar and QuickTime Player save a screen recording as a video. They cannot save a GIF. Apple’s instructions to record the screen.

The Shortcuts app can convert the recording: make a shortcut with the “Make GIF” action, and give it the video. It has settings for the size and the loops, but not for the quality, and you cannot trim the video or see the result first.

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