FFmpeg: 3 Easiest Ways to Extract Frames From Video

1st Method: Specific Timestamp

Let's extract a single frame at a specific timestamp. If you need a thumbnail or a snapshot taken at five seconds into your video, run this command:

ffmpeg -ss 00:00:05 -i input.mp4 -frames:v 1 output.png

The -ss flag sets the exact timestamp, -i selects your video, -frames:v 1 tells FFmpeg to extract just one frame, and output.png saves it as an image.

2nd Method: Time Intervals

Extracting frames at regular time intervals. This is ideal when you want consistent preview images throughout your clip.

To grab one frame every second, use the fps filter like this:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "fps=1" frame_%04d.png

The frame_%04d.png part automatically numbers your output files with four digits, creating frame_0001.png, frame_0002.png, and so on.

If you prefer a frame every 5 seconds, change the filter to fps=1/5:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "fps=1/5" frame_%04d.png

And for longer videos where you only need a frame every 60 seconds, use fps=1/60:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "fps=1/60" frame_%04d.png

3rd Method: Every Single Frame

This method extracts every single frame from the video. Because videos run at twenty-four frames per second or higher, this action can take a few moments to finish loading and will generate a large number of images in your directory.

To dump every frame, run:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 frame_%04d.png

Once the terminal finishes processing, open your project folder to quickly verify that your image files are there and open cleanly.

As a practical tip, if you need to save storage space when generating hundreds of frames, simply change .png to .jpg at the end of any of these commands for much smaller file sizes.

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