MakeGIF

Turn any video into a perfectly optimized GIF.

MakeGIF is a command-line tool that makes it easy to create high-quality GIFs from video files. It comes with a beautiful interactive interface, automatic black bar removal, and smart optimization to keep file sizes small.

Quick Install

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dissidentcode/makegif/master/install.sh | bash

This will download MakeGIF, add it to your shell, and offer to install any missing dependencies.

Features

• Interactive TUI - A guided step-by-step interface (powered by gum) that walks you through every option
• High & Low Quality Modes - High quality uses advanced palette generation for better colors; low quality is faster and smaller
• Auto Black Bar Removal - Automatically detects and removes letterbox bars from widescreen videos
• Square Crop - Crop GIFs to square for social media with customizable alignment
• Smart Optimization - Uses gifsicle to compress GIFs without losing quality
• Flexible Time Input - Enter times as 10, 1:30, or 01:30:45 — whatever's easiest
• Works Everywhere - macOS and Linux with bash or zsh

Usage

MakeGIF has three ways to run:

Interactive Mode (Recommended)

Just type makegif with no arguments. You'll get a beautiful interface that guides you through each step:

makegif

The TUI lets you browse for video files, preview your settings, and go back to change options before creating your GIF.

Quick Command Mode

Pass all your options directly:

makegif video.mp4 0:30 5 output.gif high

This creates a 5-second GIF starting at 30 seconds into the video, using high quality mode.

Full Syntax

makegif <video> <start> <duration> <output.gif> [quality] [width] [fps] [colors] [remove_bars] [square]

Parameters

Parameter	Required	Default	Description
video	Yes	-	Path to your video file (MP4, MOV, MKV, AVI, WebM, etc.)
start	Yes	-	Start time (10, 1:30, or 01:30:45)
duration	Yes	-	How long the GIF should be
output.gif	Yes	-	Output filename (must end in .gif)
quality	No	low	high for better colors, low for faster/smaller
width	No	640	Output width in pixels (32-7680)
fps	No	10	Frames per second (1-60)
colors	No	256	Color palette size (2-256). Lower = smaller files
remove_bars	No	no	yes to auto-remove black bars
square	No	no	yes to crop to square aspect ratio

Examples

Basic GIF from a video:

makegif movie.mp4 1:23:45 3 reaction.gif

High quality, smaller size:

makegif clip.mov 0 10 demo.gif high 480 15 128

Remove letterbox bars:

makegif widescreen.mp4 5:00 8 scene.gif low 640 10 256 yes

Square crop for Instagram:

# First create the GIF
makegif video.mp4 0:15 4 post.gif high

# Then crop it square (center-aligned)
squaregif post.gif post-square.gif center

Square Crop Options

The squaregif command lets you choose which part to keep:

squaregif <input.gif> <output.gif> [alignment]

Alignment options: left, right, center (default), top, bottom

Reducing File Size

GIFs can get large. Here's how to keep them small:

• Lower the width - 480 or 320 instead of 640
• Reduce colors - 64 or 128 colors still look good and save a lot of space
• Lower FPS - 8 or 10 fps is usually smooth enough
• Shorter duration - Every second adds frames

Dependencies

MakeGIF needs these tools installed:

• ffmpeg - Does the actual video processing
• gifsicle - Optimizes the final GIF
• gum (optional) - Powers the pretty TUI interface

The install script will offer to install these for you. If you prefer to install manually:

# macOS
brew install ffmpeg gifsicle gum

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install ffmpeg gifsicle
# For gum: https://github.com/charmbracelet/gum#installation

# Fedora
sudo dnf install ffmpeg gifsicle

Manual Installation

If you prefer not to use the install script:

1. Download makegif.sh from this repo
2. Add this line to your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:

source /path/to/makegif.sh

3. Restart your terminal or run source ~/.zshrc

Troubleshooting

"command not found: makegif"

• Make sure you've sourced the script in your shell config
• Try opening a new terminal window

GIF is too large

• Reduce width, colors, or fps (see "Reducing File Size" above)

Colors look bad

• Use high quality mode for better color accuracy
• Increase the color count (up to 256)

Black bars still showing

• Try yes for the remove_bars option
• The detection works best with solid black bars

License

MIT License

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests.