Simple GIF Cap

Hotkey. Drag. Paste.
Record any part of your screen straight to a GIF on your clipboard, from Raycast.

_{Yes, that is a GIF of a GIF.}

Why

You want to show a teammate what you are seeing: a bug, a flow, a glitch. A screenshot misses the motion, a screen recording is too heavy for chat, and gifcap.dev lives in a browser tab. Simple GIF Cap is one hotkey away: pick an area, record, stop, and the GIF is already on your clipboard.

Features

• Pick anything. Drag a region and fine-tune it with handles, or hover and click a window. Space flips between the two.
• Out of your way. A 3-2-1 countdown, a dashed frame and a tiny floating Stop pill, none of which end up in the GIF.
• One hotkey. Run a record command again to stop.
• Clipboard first. The GIF is encoded, copied and previewed the moment you stop.
• Trim and tune. Cut the start or end, change frame rate or width, right from the preview.
• Slack-sized. Fit under 10 MB with one shortcut.
• History. Recent GIFs in a grid, ready to copy again.
• Crisp output. Uses gifski when installed, ffmpeg otherwise.

Commands

Command	What it does
Record GIF of Region	Drag a region, or press Space to pick a window. Run again to stop.
Record GIF of Window	Hover and click the window to record. Run again to stop.
Record GIF of Screen	Record the display under the mouse. Run again to stop.
Stop GIF Recording	Stop the running recording and open the preview.
Show Last GIF	Preview, trim, shrink and copy the latest GIF.
Recent GIFs	Browse, copy and edit your recent GIFs.

Assign a hotkey to one of the record commands in Raycast settings and use it to both start and stop.

Picker shortcuts

Key	Action
Drag	Draw a region; drag inside it to move, drag an edge or corner to resize
Click	Select the whole display (region mode) or the window (window mode)
Space	Switch between region and window mode
Enter, double click, Record button	Start recording
Esc	Cancel

Preview shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Enter	Copy GIF
Cmd+Shift+V	Paste GIF to the active app
Cmd+T	Trim and adjust
Cmd+F	Fit under 10 MB
Cmd+Shift+R / Cmd+Shift+W	Change frame rate / max width
Cmd+O / Cmd+Shift+F	Open GIF / show in Finder
Ctrl+X	Delete

Requirements

• macOS 13 or newer and Raycast
• Nothing else to use it. GIFs are encoded with macOS's own frameworks.
• Optional: brew install ffmpeg for smaller files, plus brew install gifski for sharper colors. Simple GIF Cap picks them up automatically.

Configuration

Open Raycast Settings, go to Extensions and select Simple GIF Cap.

Preference	Default	Notes
Save GIFs To	~/Downloads	Folder for finished GIFs
Frames per Second	15	Higher is smoother but bigger
Max Width	1000 px	Wider recordings are scaled down
Encoder	Best Available	gifski, then ffmpeg, then built-in
Countdown	3 Seconds	None, 3 or 5 seconds
Stop Automatically After	1 minute	Keeps runaway recordings small
Show mouse clicks / Show cursor	On	Passed to screencapture
ffmpeg Path	Homebrew	Only needed for a non-Homebrew ffmpeg

Troubleshooting

• Raycast asks to run "Show Last GIF": the recorder opens the preview through a deeplink, and Raycast confirms deeplinks from other apps. Choose Always Run Command once.
• The recording is empty or fails: give Raycast Screen Recording access in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen & System Audio Recording, then restart Raycast.
• "ffmpeg not found": you forced the ffmpeg or gifski encoder. Install it with Homebrew, set the ffmpeg path, or switch the encoder back to Best Available.

License

MIT