Convert WebM to GIF

GIFs that show the problem

A short animation explains a bug, a feature or a setting faster than a paragraph. Issue trackers, pull requests, wikis, help centers and chat tools show a GIF right where people read, with no player and no click. WebM is the format browser recorders save, but many of those places will not show it inline, so the GIF is what gets attached. A GIF attached to a ticket also travels with it, with no link to a video service that might expire or need a login.

Screen recordings also tend to show what should stay inside a company: customer records, internal tools, unreleased work. Octoolo converts them on your own computer, so none of it passes through a converter's server, and it works without a connection once FFmpeg is installed. That also makes it usable on a work laptop where upload sites are blocked or simply not allowed for company material.

Keeping text readable

Screen content is not like camera footage. It is mostly flat color and sharp text, which GIF's 256-color palette handles well, and most of the screen stays still from frame to frame, which Octoolo's GIFs do not store twice. The danger is size: shrink a 1080p recording to the 240 pixels of Small and the words turn to mush.

• Keep the pixels. Use High with Size set to 720p, or As it is for a recording of a small window.
• Drop the frames. An interface demo reads fine at 10 frames a second, and every frame left out is weight saved.
• Keep the colors. Small also cuts a GIF to 128 colors, which can band the soft gradients of a modern interface.
• Record less. A recording of one window or area makes a smaller, sharper GIF than a whole screen.

Size and length

Length is what makes a GIF heavy. Past 20 seconds, Octoolo cautions that the animation will be very big, and it means it. Since this converter takes each recording whole, cut it first if it rambles: the video trimmer drops the start and the end, and the Video Editor can export a GIF of just the part that matters.

When a GIF is still too heavy for a tracker's upload limit, try animated WebP: it keeps full color, comes out much smaller than a GIF, and current browsers show it. Some tools only take GIF files, so check before you switch.

The file list helps you plan: every recording shows its length before you convert, so the long ones stand out, and after converting each line shows the GIF's size and how it compares with the WebM.

Record it ready to convert

Octoolo's screen recorder lives in the same Video Editor. It records any monitor, a single window that it follows, or an area you drag over, at 30 or 60 frames a second, and keeps its own control bar out of the picture. It saves MP4, which converts to GIF exactly as a WebM does, with no browser tab involved. Turn on Show the pointer so viewers can follow the clicks, and Hide Octoolo while recording so it stays out of the shot.

If a GIF is the goal, record at 720p rather than Full: the text is then already at a size the GIF can keep, and there is less to shrink later. Pause lets you skip the dull parts as you go, so the recording needs less trimming before it becomes a GIF. The recorder's own quality choice, Standard or High, matters less here than its size does, since the GIF is made afresh from whatever you record.