A pure JavaScript tool for extracting GIF frames and saving to file. Works in Node or the browser. Uses get-pixels and save-pixels under the hood.

npm install gif-frames

If you're not using npm, you can include one of these in your HTML file:

• https://unpkg.com/gif-frames?main=bundled (Unminified)
• https://unpkg.com/gif-frames?main=bundled-min (Minified)

<!-- unminified -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]?main=bundled"></script>

<!-- minified -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]?main=bundled-min"></script>

This will expose gifFrames as a global variable.

var gifFrames = require('gif-frames');
var fs = require('fs');

gifFrames({ url: 'image.gif', frames: 0 }).then(function (frameData) {
  frameData[0].getImage().pipe(fs.createWriteStream('firstframe.jpg'));
});

• url (required): The pathname to the file, or an in-memory Buffer
• frames (required): The set of frames to extract. Can be one of:
  • 'all' (gets every frame)
  • Any valid Initializer accepted by the multi-integer-range library
• outputType (optional, default 'jpg'): Type to use for output (see type for save-pixels)
• quality (optional): Jpeg quality (see quality for save-pixels)
• cumulative (optional, default false): Many animated GIFs will only contain partial image information in each frame after the first. Specifying cumulative as true will compute each frame by layering it on top of previous frames. Note: the cost of this computation is proportional to the size of the last requested frame index.

The callback accepts the arguments (error, frameData).

A Promise resolving to the frameData array (if promises are supported in the running environment)

An array of objects of the form:

{
  getImage,
  frameIndex,
  frameInfo
}

Returns one of:

• A drawn canvas DOM element, if options.outputType is 'canvas'
• A data stream which can be piped to file output, otherwise

The index corresponding to the frame's position in the original GIF (not necessarily the same as the frame's position in the result array)

It is an Object with metadata of the frame. Fields:

See GIF spec for details

Writing selected frames to the file system in Node:

var gifFrames = require('gif-frames');
var fs = require('fs');

gifFrames(
  { url: 'image.gif', frames: '0-2,7', outputType: 'png', cumulative: true },
  function (err, frameData) {
    if (err) {
      throw err;
    }
    frameData.forEach(function (frame) {
      frame.getImage().pipe(fs.createWriteStream(
        'image-' + frame.frameIndex + '.png'
      ));
    });
  }
);

Drawing first frame to canvas in browser (and using a Promise):

var gifFrames = require('gif-frames');

gifFrames({ url: 'image.gif', frames: 0, outputType: 'canvas' })
  .then(function (frameData) {
    document.body.appendChild(frameData[0].getImage());
  }).catch(console.error.bind(console));