Want to turn something on YouTube into a GIF, but don’t want to futz with downloading third-party apps or digging around for an online converter?
Here’s a handy, easy to remember trick: just add “GIF” to the beginning of the URL. After “www.” and before “youtube.com”
Like so:
.
So, for example, you’d turn:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
into:
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www.gifyoutube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
and hit enter. Tada!
To be clear, this isn’t an official YouTube tool (though I’d still argue that YouTube really, really ought to build one) — so don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work forever , particularly if YouTube’s legal team gets too bummed about the use of their trademark right in the domain. This is a side project by the team behind the super GIF-centric messaging app Glyphic.
One catch: in the current build, you can set the start time and GIF duration, but you can’t get super precise about it. If you want frame-by-frame control for that sweet, sweet perfectly timed loopage, you’ll probably want something like GIFGrabber or GIFBrewery
[Via HackerNews]