Weebshot

A screenshot and clip tool for anime. Open an episode, find the frame or line you want, and save a full-resolution screenshot or cut a WebM, MP4, MKV, GIF or animated WebP, with subtitles burned in, left out, or both.

Warning

This project was vibecoded — written largely by an AI coding assistant, with a human steering and testing. It works and has a decent test suite, but it hasn't had the scrutiny of a carefully hand-written project. Expect rough edges, and please report what you find. (Weebshot only ever creates new files; it never modifies your videos.)

What it makes

The bundled demo scene is available as both a WebM clip and a GIF:

	Settings	Size
WebM (click to play)	1080p, VP9 + Opus, subtitles burned in, fit into 8 MB	3.7 MB · 6.1 s
GIF (above)	360p, 15 fps, Balanced preset, duplicate frames dropped	2.6 MB · 6.1 s

Download

Platform	Download
Windows 10/11 (x64)	weebshot-windows-x64.zip	unzip and run weebshot.exe
Linux (x86-64)	weebshot-x86_64.AppImage	make executable and run
Fedora (x86-64)	weebshot-x86_64.rpm	sudo dnf install ./weebshot-x86_64.rpm
macOS (Apple Silicon)	weebshot-macos-arm64.zip	right-click → Open the first time · experimental

Everything is included (player, ffmpeg, gifsicle, Anime4KCPP helper) — no separate installs. Weebshot checks for updates once a day and can update itself on Windows and Linux AppImage builds. Fedora RPM installations are upgraded with dnf install ./weebshot-x86_64.rpm. More in Installing & updating.

Features

Finding a frame

• Arrow keys step one frame at a time (Shift/Ctrl for bigger, configurable steps), clicks snap to frames, and you can type a timecode (00:01:23:12) or frame number (#2000).
• Timeline with a thumbnail filmstrip (every frame, once you zoom in), an audio waveform, subtitle lines as blocks, and chapter markers.
• A shuttle control, plus J/K/L, for scanning forward and backward at variable speed.
• ↑/↓ jump between subtitle lines.

Subtitles

• Mark a clip to exactly one subtitle line with a single key press, or a double-click on the timeline.
• Subtitle lines can be edited, deleted and retimed directly on the timeline (right-click a line, or drag it to retime). Edits are reflected in the preview and in exports.
• Styled ASS subtitles keep their fonts — whatever's embedded in the MKV is used, with the same renderer as the preview. PGS (Blu-ray) subtitles work too.
• Exports can include subtitles, leave them out, or do both in one go (…_subbed / …_raw).

Screenshots

• Taken by the player itself, at full source resolution (not the window size), as PNG, JPG or WebP. S uses your current subtitle setting, Ctrl+S gives a clean frame.
• Copy (Ctrl+Shift+C) copies the screenshot image. A gentle ding confirms a saved screenshot.

Auto Stitch

Reconstruct illustrations from horizontal, vertical, or small diagonal camera pans. Use the Stitch sidebar tab for Auto Stitch (Shift+S) around the playhead, or mark In/Out and choose Stitch Selection (Alt+Shift+S). Preview, zoom, pan, and save the native-resolution result as PNG. See Auto Stitch for settings, resource limits, and supported scenes. In/Out marks override automatic discovery; clear them to search around the playhead.

Clips

• WebM (VP9/Opus), MP4 (H.264/AAC), MKV, GIF, animated WebP.
• MP4 and MKV offer Encoding → Copy to preserve the source video and selected audio. Cuts follow source keyframes, subtitles are omitted, and the source codecs must fit the container. See Copy without re-encoding.
• Copy (Shift+E) exports the clip and copies the finished files to the clipboard.
• Can target a file size (4/8/10/25/50 MB, e.g. for imageboards or Discord) with a 2-pass encode that lands just under it.
• Can also repeat a clip's content a set number of times, for making loop videos.
• GPU encoding via NVENC, Quick Sync or AMF, where available — found by actually testing each one rather than just checking for drivers.
• Re-encoding converts 10-bit sources for broad playback compatibility and makes frame-accurate cuts.

GIFs

• Per-clip optimal palette, duplicate-frame dropping (anime is often drawn on 2s/3s), changed-area-only encoding, adjustable colors and dithering, and optional gifsicle lossy compression, with Small/Balanced/High presets.

Other things

• Resizable sidebar with Capture, Stitch, Media, Queue, and Logs tabs. The selected tab is remembered, and Capture shares its output folder with Stitch.
• Export queue runs in the background, with progress, retry, and a log of every ffmpeg command run.
• Rebindable shortcuts, a few themes (Gruvbox, Nord, Catppuccin, Dracula), UI scaling.
• Built-in documentation (F1) that reflects your current key bindings.
• A short sound when a screenshot or export finishes.

More screenshots

The macOS screenshot shows an earlier interface.

Documentation

The same pages are built into the app (Help → Documentation, or F1):

Getting started · Installing & updating · The interface · Timeline & seeking · Screenshots · Auto Stitch · Clips · GIFs · Keyboard shortcuts · Options & themes · Troubleshooting

For implementation details, see the technical documentation.

Building from source

You need Rust (stable). At runtime Weebshot looks for ffmpeg (and optionally gifsicle) next to itself, then on your PATH.

Anime4K upscaling also needs the weebshot-anime4k helper, which cargo build does not build. It is optional for other features. Building it requires CMake 3.28+, a C++17 compiler, FFmpeg development libraries, and OpenCL development headers and libraries for GPU support. See Building the Anime4K helper for commands and a CPU-only option. Cargo launches find it in target/anime4k (or target/anime4k/Release on Windows); installed builds look next to the app, then on PATH. The platform packaging scripts build and bundle it automatically.

Windows — with the Visual Studio Build Tools (C++) installed:

./scripts/fetch-libmpv.ps1        # downloads libmpv and creates its import library
cargo run --release
./scripts/package.ps1             # optional: zip with ffmpeg, gifsicle and Anime4K helper in dist/

Linux (Ubuntu 24.04 or newer, for libmpv 0.37+):

sudo apt install libmpv-dev ffmpeg gifsicle libxkbcommon-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libwayland-dev \
  libx11-dev libxcursor-dev libxrandr-dev libxi-dev
cargo run --release
./scripts/package-linux.sh        # optional: AppImage in dist/

macOS (Apple Silicon only):

brew install mpv ffmpeg gifsicle
LIBRARY_PATH="$(brew --prefix)/lib" cargo run --release

Pushing a v* tag builds all three platforms on GitHub Actions and publishes a release. See CONTRIBUTING.md for how the code is organised and how to run the tests.

License

Weebshot is free software under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.

It's built on the shoulders of mpv, FFmpeg, gifsicle, egui and Phosphor icons; the release packages include mpv, FFmpeg, gifsicle and Anime4KCPP under their own licenses — see THIRD-PARTY.md.