AstroGif is an open-source menu bar app which allows you to search for animated GIFs and copy their URL, or the markdown equivalent, to the clipboard.

The program runs in the background on your PC. It can be launched by clicking its system tray icon, or pressing its (customisable) hotkey, Ctrl+Alt+Space.

AstroGif opens with the focus on a textbox. Type a keyword – “cat”, “happy”, “breakfast” – and the program downloads and displays a matching animation.

Keep hitting the Down arrow to see more animations. Use the Up arrow to step back, if necessary.

Hitting Enter copies the image URL to the clipboard. That’s great if you’re intending to embed it somewhere online, maybe in a forum post, but not so much use if you’d like to save a copy locally.

A Settings box enables customising the global hotkey. You can optionally copy the URL as markdown, and there’s the ability to restrict the GIF rating (this is set low by default to keep the results child-friendly).

AstroGif really needs the ability to save animations locally. We’d also prefer the program to appear in a “real” window we can move around and stays on the screen until we close it (right now it disappears if you click anywhere else). But it’s not bad at all for version 0.3.0, and hopefully there’s a lot more to come.

AstroGif is an open-source tool for Windows, Linux and Mac.