Record your screen as a GIF. Instant. Local. No tracking.
ScreenGif is a cross-platform screen recording tool that captures screen regions and converts them to animated GIFs, perfect for bug reports, UAT feedback, and documentation. Unlike Loom or CloudApp, GIFs embed directly in Linear, Slack, GitHub Issues, and email clients without requiring a video player.
How it works
- Launch with keyboard shortcut (
Cmd+Shift+6) or toolbar button - Select a screen region or window
- Record up to 10 seconds at 10fps
- GIF auto-saves to Downloads (or copies to clipboard on macOS)
Typical file size: 1-3 MB. All processing happens locally: zero network requests, no accounts, no telemetry.
Cross-platform
- Chrome Extension (Manifest v3): Tab capture with region selection overlay using Shadow DOM isolation
- Safari Extension: Built from the same web extension source code
- macOS App (Electron): System tray integration, global shortcuts, animated GIF clipboard support
Key Technical Decisions
- Local-first architecture: All GIF encoding runs in-browser or in Electron's renderer process. No frames leave the device.
- Shadow DOM overlay: The region selector injects into web pages using Shadow DOM to prevent CSS conflicts with the recorded page.
- Offscreen documents: Chrome's offscreen API handles background GIF encoding without blocking the UI.
- gifenc: Lightweight GIF encoding with per-frame color quantization optimized for UI screenshots (256 colors).