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I need a way to record my Windows desktop and save it as an animated GIF file. Here's an example:
I need GIF animations so that they can run from a web page without requiring any plugins. I want to record and save directly as a GIF.
How can I create a GIF screencast?
metal gear solid
Posted 2009-12-11T10:37:27.613
Reputation: 7 796
152
I've been using licecap in various Super User answers. It's dead simple to use as you can see from this animated GIF image - just extend it over your recording area, hit record, set a save file, do your thing and hit stop. It's free, works pretty well, and seems simpler than most of the alternatives. It's entirely free and has Windows and OS X ports.
On Windows 8.1 and hdpi displays, you'll need to turn off per app display scaling to get it to work normally without turning off global display scaling. I have a walkthrough on it here (Fixed as of version 1.26.)
Journeyman Geek
Posted 2009-12-11T10:37:27.613
Reputation: 119 122
I'm surprised at the color posterization quality considering it's a GIF. – Cole Johnson – 2014-10-02T21:37:04.023
1licecap is indeed simple and awesome. One more tip - if you are using windows and don't want to install it, you can just unzip it with 7zip. – Kay – 2015-03-25T18:28:19.680
9wait, how did you get the screencast of yourself using licecap to record the screencast? – Jacob Krall – 2016-10-10T17:21:26.157
11@JacobKrall a second instance of licecap. – Journeyman Geek – 2017-01-03T15:42:04.813
28
I found GifCam, which is free for Windows.
It worked well for my needs to capture and export the GIF image.
Some nice features:
Disclosure: I have no affiliation with the product or developer.
Daniel Ballinger
Posted 2009-12-11T10:37:27.613
Reputation: 1 534
This actually looks pretty handy, and has a few shiny features. I know with my own answer, I let the gif do the talking, but I'd suggest adding a bit more to your answer, covering some of the more useful features for this question. Being able to add text inline, for example seems to be something that gifcam does better than licecap! – Journeyman Geek – 2015-07-23T23:35:56.233
@JourneymanGeek Done. I'm not sure how it compares to licecap. – Daniel Ballinger – 2015-07-24T01:35:35.997
I prefer licecap for captures, cause the UI is roughly as basic it can be. The editor is useful for crops, and such even if you've made the gif with something else. Quality looks a little worse than licecap in many situations but still good enough for most things – Journeyman Geek – 2017-01-31T11:04:11.347
22
Screen To Gif is an excellent free solution. It has a lot of features including save directly to folder, hotkeys to start/stop recording, hide/show mouse, etc.
smdrager
Posted 2009-12-11T10:37:27.613
Reputation: 321
One downside is that it requires the Net Framework >= 4.6.1. – Franck Dernoncourt – 2019-06-29T08:56:44.423
Download an earlier version which does not. https://www.screentogif.com/downloads.html
– smdrager – 2019-07-06T14:01:35.22716
Use CamStudio Portable to record your screen activities to AVI.
Use VirtualDubMod to convert the AVI to a sequence of images (PNG).
Use Easy Graphic Converter to convert the PNGs to GIFs.
Use UnFREEz to create an animated GIF from the images.
Done and dusted.
ALL programs are free, and ALL programs but Easy Graphic Converter are portable. Either you find an alternative image converter (there are plenty; I only chose it, because it was used for the tutorial) or you make it portable yourself by running the installer through the mighty Universal Extractor (I have tested it, it works).
If you want it "All in One", then you're pretty much out of luck, at least as far as "free and portable" goes.
Here are some (rather cheap) commercial screen-recording programs with output to animated GIF:
aSkysoft Screen Recorder ($39.95)
Super Screen Capture ($49.95)
As far as 'portability' is concerned, pretty much anything can be made portable, one way or other.
Worked well for me.. Updated the link to CamStudio Portable. – Keith Sirmons – 2012-03-26T13:33:34.290
thx for reply but i wanto record in gif like video not in 10 second screenshots – metal gear solid – 2009-12-23T21:20:28.843
1You have some pretty specific requirements, that really should be in the question! However, I'd reconsider what you're trying to achieve - gifs are not built for long videos. – Phoshi – 2009-12-23T23:36:18.890
2i don't really get it either, animated gif would be my very last choice for screen recordings. size, quality, lack of audio ... no match for SWF, nevermind AVI. anyway, he's got the tools he needs to do it, if 'all in one' is the next requirement, he'll have to cough up the few quid for a commercial program. i'm done here :) – None – 2009-12-23T23:46:48.070
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Jon Galloway had a great post of using TimeSnapper to record his desktop activities. The application which is an automatic screenshot journal isn't free, but at $25 it really isn't a bad deal.
And, if you don't need all of the options that the professional edition has, you can always download the 'Classic' version and just take screen shots of your activities.
Chris
Posted 2009-12-11T10:37:27.613
Reputation: 1 688
3
I would like to offer my software recommendation.
It is called ShareX.
I am recommending a review of ShareX on [2].
1: https://github.com/ShareX/ShareX/releases
2: https://filmora.wondershare.com/screen-recorder/sharex-review-and-alternatives.html
Apometron
Posted 2009-12-11T10:37:27.613
Reputation: 39
2
May be this not a solution, just a alternate way.
You can use Wink to record desktop activities and It has the option to export as SWF file format. You could use any swf to gif converter (will update soon)
ukanth
Posted 2009-12-11T10:37:27.613
Reputation: 9 930
1i know about Wink but i need direct screen to gif – metal gear solid – 2009-12-11T11:14:14.653
2
Not sure there is a truly portable program to do this, given the huge difference between the Windows windows manager & the X Windows server used in *nix and Mac. Irfanview is probably the best windows tool to do this.
NirCmd is a commandline tool that can import a sequence of images on windows. Imagemagick can do this on anything running an X Server, there are free X servers for windows.
All of these tools make individual gif's which you can them combine into a single animated gif.
I still recommend Imagemagick for it's conversion capabilities. It has many features you could use to make your animated gif's more efficient.
DaveParillo
Posted 2009-12-11T10:37:27.613
Reputation: 13 402
Appears other solutions can freely solve this now: http://superuser.com/questions/20381/is-there-a-screen-recording-app-that-saves-as-gif
– bbodenmiller – 2013-06-05T22:35:06.473