Video to GIF

Turn any video into a clean, smooth GIF with a single bash command.

Prerequisites

• ffmpeg and ffprobe available in PATH.
• Bash shell (script tested with bash).

Install FFmpeg and FFprobe

Check first:

ffmpeg -version && ffprobe -version

If both commands work, you are set. Otherwise:

• macOS: brew install ffmpeg (Homebrew). Without Homebrew, download a macOS build from evermeet.cx or gyan.dev and place ffmpeg/ffprobe somewhere on your PATH (e.g., /usr/local/bin or /opt/homebrew/bin).
• Windows: Download the "release full" zip from gyan.dev (FFmpeg builds), unzip to C:\\ffmpeg, and add C:\\ffmpeg\\bin to your PATH. Open a new terminal afterward.
• Linux:
  • Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
  • Fedora/RHEL/CentOS: sudo dnf install ffmpeg (or sudo yum install ffmpeg on older releases)
  • Arch: sudo pacman -S ffmpeg

After installing, re-run ffmpeg -version and ffprobe -version to confirm.

Optional: run scripts/check_ffmpeg.sh to see whether both tools are available and get OS-specific guidance.

Usage

./video_to_gif.sh /path/to/video.mp4 [output.gif]

• If output.gif is omitted, the script saves next to the input using the same base name (e.g., video.mp4 → video.gif).
• The script will exit if the input file does not exist or ffmpeg/ffprobe are missing.

Example

Convert clips/dance.mov to a GIF in the same folder:

./video_to_gif.sh clips/dance.mov
# Creates: clips/dance.gif

Convert and specify a custom output path:

./video_to_gif.sh clips/dance.mov ~/Desktop/dance_small.gif

What the script does

• Detects the exact frame rate of the source video to keep motion smooth.
• Generates an optimized color palette, then applies it for cleaner GIF output.
• Uses Lanczos scaling; width is preserved and height auto-adjusts to maintain aspect ratio.

Tips

• Trim your video before conversion for smaller GIFs.
• For very large inputs, consider resizing first in your video editor to reduce file size.