Animated pins
Loop GIF, APNG, and animated WebP images on your screen, pause playback, inspect individual frames, adjust speed, and copy the animation or a frame.
Animated pins loop GIF, APNG, and animated WebP images on your screen. Pause on a frame, inspect animation details frame by frame, or slow playback to study a process, useful for following animated tutorials or checking motion designs.
Create an animated pin
Copy an animated image file in your file manager and press Ctrl+2⌃ Control+2. You can also drag it onto the floating ball on your desktop.
Supported formats include GIF, APNG, WebP, and other image files containing multiple frames. You can pin only one animated file at a time. Copying several files together creates a file pin.
PixPin saves a copy of the animated file when pinning it. Moving or deleting the original later does not affect the pin.
Playback controls
With an animated pin selected:
| Operation | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Play / pause | SpaceSpace |
| Previous frame | ←← |
| Next frame | →→ |
Stepping to the previous or next frame automatically pauses playback for frame-by-frame inspection. Press SpaceSpace to resume.
These operations are also in the context menu. Its bottom shows the current speed and frame count, for example “Speed: 1.0x” and “Frame: 12/48.”
Playback speed
| Operation | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Increase speed | ↑↑ |
| Decrease speed | ↓↓ |
| Reset speed | RR |
Each increase or decrease multiplies the speed by 1.5 or two-thirds, respectively. The maximum is 8× and the minimum is 0.1×.
Copy and save
Pressing Ctrl+C⌘ Command+C on an animated pin copies both the currently displayed frame and the animated file. Pasting into a chat, folder, or other destination that supports files gives you the full animation; destinations that only support images receive the current frame.
Differences from image pins
Animated pins focus on animation playback and differ from image pins in these ways:
- You cannot add annotations or select text in the image.
- The arrow keys change frames and speed, so they cannot move the pin.
- RR resets speed. To use thumbnail mode, hold Shift⇧ Shift and double-click the pin, or select “Thumbnail mode” in the context menu.
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