Using Gifs for terminal explanations and usages aren’t new and exciting anymore but they are still useful. This is how to create them quickly on OSX.

Install

The tool we will use to capture our gif ttygif.

brew install imagemagick ttyrec
brew install https\://raw.githubusercontent.com/icholy/ttygif/master/ttygif.rb

Gif

The process of creating the gif is:

• Run ttyrec which records your terminal session as series of png files.
• Run ttygif to convert the png files to small gifs.
• Concat the gif files using the concat script.
• Edit the final gif using whatever tool or online site you like.

#creates series pngs(type exit to finish recording)
ttyrec recording-name
#convert png -> gif(-f disables cropping)
ttygif recording-name -f
#concat gif parts into final product
concat_osx.sh recording-name.gif

Example