Gifski
free video-to-GIF converter with unusually good output
Open source
Gifski is a converter, not a recorder, so you still need something to capture with; the screen recorder built into macOS is fine for that. The current 3.0.6 build requires macOS 26 or later, and older Macs have to stay on an earlier release. Output is GIF only, and large or long clips will still produce big files no matter how good the palette handling is — this is a limitation of the format rather than the app.
Most GIF converters quantise the whole clip to one 256-colour palette, which is why a screen recording of a dark UI comes out banded and a video of anything with a gradient comes out looking posterised. Gifski gives each frame its own palette and then blends between them, so the result is recognisably the video you fed it. Drag in a file, set a width, a frame rate and a quality level, watch the preview, export.
The practical loop it fits into: record with Command-Shift-5, drop the .mov onto Gifski, trim off the part where you were finding the mouse, and paste the GIF into a pull request. Nothing to sign into, no upload step, no file-size limit imposed by a service.
It is free and MIT licensed, and Sindre Sorhus has been shipping it for years, so there is no price story to worry about — only the macOS requirement. Version 3.0.6 wants macOS 26, which rules out older machines until you hunt down an earlier build from the GitHub releases page.
Do not expect it to record anything, and do not expect miracles on a 40-second 4K clip: GIF is an inefficient format, and the honest answer for anything long is to post an MP4 instead.
What it looks like
What it does
- Per-frame palettes from the gifski encoder, so gradients survive
- Size, frame-rate, quality and loop controls with a live preview
- Trim the clip before converting
- Drag-and-drop from Finder or a screen recording
- MIT licensed with releases through the Mac App Store or GitHub
Cancel instead
Also bought outright in capture
The facts
- Price
- Free
- Licence
- Free and open source
- What you get
- No licence to buy, and the source is public.
- Details
- Free on the Mac App Store with no in-app purchases and no account. Source is MIT licensed on GitHub.
- Free trial
- No
- On Setapp
- No
- Minimum macOS
- macOS 26
- Developer
- Sindre Sorhus
- Source
- Repository
- Price checked
- 2026-09-22
Check it yourself - Price band
- Free