Any options out there to download these weird Twitter "GIFs"?
There doesn't seem to be a way to download them directly via right-clicking, and other extensions I've tried either don't seem to work or download broken files.

Spam screenshots.

RandomAnon said:
these weird Twitter "GIFs"?

There are websites that will parse twitter pages for you to get direct video links, if that doesn't work then try going into web developer tools on your browser and methodically figure it out on your own.

I usually use "JDownloader 2" to download twitter videos. I then use "WebM for Retards" to convert videos into webm as mp4 is not supported on e621. My usual settings are around variable mode, with CRF 16 and two-pass (high quality mode).

I used "EZGif" to download Twitter GIFs before. It was, and is, very nice.

RandomAnon said:
Any options out there to download these weird Twitter "GIFs"?
There doesn't seem to be a way to download them directly via right-clicking, and other extensions I've tried either don't seem to work or download broken files.

Yes, "GIF" indeed.
Twitter does not host any GIF files at all. All moving images and videos are always in MP4 format.

Youtube-DL or already mentioned Jdownloader2 will work as long as they are up to date.
howto:sites_and_sources#tools
youtube-dl -f best -g <twitter link> should give you direct link to MP4 file on short videos and videos which were originally GIF. You can simply navigate to this address and right click -> save the video file. This can be inserted as additional source on e621 for those who want to get original MP4 file instead of WebM, APNG or GIF conversion from e621 (jdownloader2 doesn't offer or tell link if I'm not completely incorrect). With longer videos, simply drop the -g and it downloads the video to your current folder (command prompt default is your userfolder).

KynikossDragonn said:
There are websites that will parse twitter pages for you to get direct video links, if that doesn't work then try going into web developer tools on your browser and methodically figure it out on your own.

Twitter deliberately obfuscates where the video stream comes from, sometimes it's not coming trough HTTP but rather HLS and with longer videos you will only find .m3u8 file which by itself is useless.

Even Youtube-DL needs to update almost monthly because Twitter is constantly changing their system.

AlexYorim said:
I used "EZGif" to download Twitter GIFs before. It was, and is, very nice.

And this is the absolute worst way of doing things.

You are not downloading twitter gifs, you are screencapping video of a twitter video which is conversion of GIF, then saving the screencap directly as a GIF. You now have at least three seperate visual compressions stacked and possibly horrible frame pacing issues.

If you only need to share that GIF for lols, then sure, but even then just share the link to tweet instead?

Alternatively, if you really do not want to be using software meant for this and just get original MP4, I would suggest ShareX video recording function, works much better and there is GIF option if you really need that for some absurd reason. Much more versatile screenshotting and screen toolbox software instead of just GIF recorder.

And this is the absolute worst way of doing things.

You are not downloading twitter gifs, you are screencapping video of a twitter video which is conversion of GIF, then saving the screencap directly as a GIF. You now have at least three seperate visual compressions stacked and possibly horrible frame pacing issues.

If you only need to share that GIF for lols, then sure, but even then just share the link to tweet instead?

Alternatively, if you really do not want to be using software meant for this and just get original MP4, I would suggest ShareX video recording function, works much better and there is GIF option if you really need that for some absurd reason. Much more versatile screenshotting and screen toolbox software instead of just GIF recorder.

I'm adding that I download Twitter GIFs on that site, while I download Twitter videos on another video downloader site.

AlexYorim said:
I'm adding that I download Twitter GIFs on that site, while I download Twitter videos on another video downloader site.

post #1799301

It's better than taking a screenshot and pasting it into Windows Paint...

Speaking of JDownloader2, I wouldn't use it for downloading videos, as youtube-dl does a better job at it IMO. I would use it for general file downloading, and as a last resort for when youtube-dl cannot dig out the video file.

There's also wget, but it's more useful for batch downloading many files from a website (i.e. public directories) than your day-to-day downloader.

It's interesting to me how often youtube-dl gets mentioned relative to you-get. They are similar at least superficially (video downloader, multiple sites, written in Python). I've always used you-get. Is there some compelling reason to use youtube-dl instead?

(then there's also ripme , which is better at getting galleries of images)

savageorange said:
It's interesting to me how often youtube-dl gets mentioned relative to you-get. They are similar at least superficially (video downloader, multiple sites, written in Python). I've always used you-get. Is there some compelling reason to use youtube-dl instead?

(then there's also ripme , which is better at getting galleries of images)

As long as the tool gives you access to raw streams and lets you download them, there shouldn't be any issue. Actually, this is why I usually hate to namedrop software, because it's not about the specific software, but specific behavior required from the software.

Especially with youtube and twitter, users are so accustomed to getting MP3 and GIF files, even if the websites do not use them, so by default many of websites and dummy software dedicated for them does its own conversion with first stream it can find.

Youtube-DL simply happens to be most high profile I know of to work and is updated so frequently that if there's problem, update usually fixes it immidiately.