Introduction

Mini Bread is a compact animation export plugin for After Effects on macOS and Windows, combining native encoding tools, system video encoders and After Effects output modules.

Select a comp in the Project panel, pick a format in Mini Bread, choose your export settings, then hit export. One panel covers nine formats: WebP GIF APNG AVIF WebM MP4 MOV (ProRes) Sprite sheet Image sequence, with built-in sticker presets and batch exports for WeChat, LINE, Telegram and WhatsApp.

It also supports multi-format export in one pass: drag across or Shift-click multiple formats in the selector — compatible formats share a render, and each selected format gets its own output.

Getting Started

After installation, open Mini Bread in After Effects and start with the default WebP / GIF / MP4 shortcuts.

Installation

Mini Bread is available on aescripts. Use the aescripts manager to install, activate and update the extension. If you downloaded a ZXP package, you can install it with ZXP/UXP Installer.

1. Choose Free Trial or purchase a license on the aescripts product page.
2. Save your projects and quit all After Effects instances. Install Mini Bread with the aescripts manager, or install the downloaded ZXP with ZXP/UXP Installer.
3. Open After Effects and choose Window › Extensions › Mini Bread. Follow the licensing prompts to start the trial or activate your license.

Installing or replacing native components takes effect only after restarting After Effects; do not update or uninstall while rendering. Full uninstall steps (extension folder, native components and user data locations) are in Installation, removal & compatibility notes.

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Interface Overview (Standard Mode)

The standard UI has four rows, top to bottom. These narrow close-ups come from the current production interface with optional add-ons enabled. Match each blue number to its explanation; click a number in either direction to jump between the control and its description. Your default panel shows fewer controls.

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1. 1Format selector: switch export formats; hold and drag to reorder, drag across or Shift-click to multi-select for one-pass export. See Format Selector.
2. 2Settings: open the settings panel (defaults, naming, interface, presets). See Settings.

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3. 3Quality slider: drag to trade quality against file size (a bitrate axis in MP4 mode). See Quality & Format Controls.
4. 4Quality percent: the current quality readout; click to type an exact value.

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5. 5FPS: export frame rate; click for the picker. Follows the comp by default. See Export Controls.
6. 6Resolution box W × H: follows the comp with locked aspect by default; type either side to override, the other side balances automatically.
7. 7Size library (heart): quick presets for ratios, scales and resolutions — one click fills them in; contents are configured in Settings.
8. 8Target size: enter a desired file size (MB/KB) and the required quality/bitrate is derived automatically.

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9. 9Open folder: toggle. When on, the output folder opens automatically when export finishes.
10. 10Export path: choose where this export is saved.
11. 11Preview: compare how different quality settings actually look before exporting.
12. 12Black BG export: export immediately on a black background (hover to reveal ▶, click to export).
13. 13White BG export: same, on white.
14. 14Custom name: optional filename control. Enable it in Settings to edit the name beside the export button.
15. 15Main export button: export the selected comp(s). Shows progress while exporting, ✓ and file size when done. See Action Row.
16. 16Export history: successful exports recorded while History is enabled (off by default; appears in Settings › Interface › Add-on). See Export History.

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Format Selector

The segmented control at the very top. It holds two kinds of shortcuts: export formats (nine) and sticker platforms (WeChat / LINE / Telegram / WhatsApp icons).

• Click to switch: the selected format is highlighted and the control row below swaps to that format's own options.
• Multi-select: hold and drag across several formats, or Shift-click — export each selected format together. Compatible outputs share rendered frames; MOV, sequences and other native outputs use their respective AE output modules.
• Hold and drag: pull your favorite formats within reach, in any order you like.
• Shortcut customization: in Settings › Output › Format, arrange 9 formats and 4 platforms into 1–8 visible shortcuts; unused ones take no space. The first shortcut (★) is the default export format.
• Click a platform icon: enter Platform mode, where the panel applies built-in sticker targets and validation. See Sticker Platform Mode.

Choosing between the nine formats

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Quality & Format-Specific Controls

The second row changes with the format. Formats with a quality slider show an editable readout on the right (Enter to confirm, Esc to cancel). MOV and image sequences replace that row with profile or frame-format controls; they do not use the shared quality slider.

Shared: the quality slider

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1. 1Quality slider: continuous 0–100, with tick marks every 10. The percent follows live while dragging; holding WebP at 100% for a moment switches to VP8L lossless, and APNG's 100% endpoint is true-color lossless. Enable the quality snap in Settings to snap the slider to 5% steps.
2. 2Percent readout: click to type an integer between 0–100.

GIF: color count

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1. 1Color-count button: current palette size (256 by default). Click for the picker: 256 / 128 / 64 / 32 / 16 / 8 — fewer colors means smaller files, at the cost of banding in gradients. On GIF the quality setting controls the encoder's compression strategy. Palette size, transparency and image content also affect appearance and file size.

MP4: audio & bitrate

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1. 1Audio toggle (note): on = keep the comp's audio track (encoded as AAC 192kbps / 48kHz stereo); off (crossed out, default) = silent video.
2. 2Bitrate readout: on MP4 the slider is a 0.1–50 Mbps logarithmic bitrate axis. Click the readout to type a value, and switch the unit capsule between % and Mbps while editing. Direct bitrate input accepts 0.1–300 Mbps; values above 50 Mbps sit at the slider's 100% endpoint, and moving the slider restores its percent-based setting. H.264 encoding uses the system media APIs — VideoToolbox on macOS (AudioToolbox for audio), Media Foundation on Windows; output uses Rec.709 and 4:2:0 video with faststart. Hardware acceleration depends on your system and encoder availability.

MOV (ProRes): profile, audio & alpha

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1. 1Audio toggle: whether to keep the audio track in the MOV (PCM 16-bit / 48kHz stereo).
2. 2ProRes profiles: 422 (default) / 422 HQ / 422 Proxy / 4444, all rendered by After Effects' own ProRes output module, on both macOS and Windows. MOV mode has no quality slider or target size — the profile is the quality; the target box becomes a read-only ≈ size estimate.
3. 3Alpha toggle (checkerboard): only available on 4444 (auto-enabled when entering 4444, auto-off when leaving) for ProRes 4444 with transparency. If the required profile is unavailable on your AE version, the export fails with a clear error — it never silently downgrades or substitutes another encoder.

Sprite: atlas format & engine metadata

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1. 1Atlas format: PNG (default, slider 0–99 palette quantization) / WebP (VP8L pixel-level near-lossless; savings depend on the artwork) / AVIF (slider capped at q90). Always a single-page atlas, producing the atlas plus a same-named metadata file.
2. 2Engine metadata: JSON (default, PixiJS / TexturePacker compatible) or Phaser3 — choose the metadata schema your engine expects. Check atlas loading and frame names in your target engine; compatibility also depends on its version and loader.

Seq sequence: frame format & alpha

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1. 1Frame format: frame-by-frame output as PNG (default) / JPEG / TIFF / Targa. Sequence mode hides the quality slider, target size and black/white background buttons.
2. 2Alpha toggle: whether to keep transparency (auto-unavailable for JPEG, which has no alpha).

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1. 1JPEG quality: only for JPEG frames; click to cycle Low / Med / High / Max (Max by default). Sequence options are remembered per session and reset to PNG + alpha + Max after restarting AE.

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Export Controls

The third row holds the three spec-related controls: frame rate, resolution, target size.

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1. 1FPS: export frame rate. The picker offers As comp (default) / 30 / 24 / 15 / 12 / 10. Options are filtered by the lowest source frame rate of the current comp (or queue); anything above the source rate falls back to As comp — frames are never invented.
2. 2Resolution box W × H: follows the comp with locked aspect by default. Type either side to override the export size and the other side balances automatically; clear it to follow the comp again. The heart button inside opens the size library: ratios (2 custom + 9:16 / 4:5 / 3:4), scales (2/3 / 1/2 / 1/3 / 1/6), resolution presets (2 custom, configured in Settings › Custom › Size). Sizes can also be multi-selected — one render, one file per size.
3. 3Target size (≈ Size): enter the desired file size in MB or KB. The required quality/bitrate is derived from duration, frame rate and format, calibrated against past measurements — useful for working toward a size cap (e.g. the built-in WeChat target of ≤500KB). Actual size depends on the media and encoder; review the output or compliance report before delivery. The ≈ prefix marks an estimate. WebP / APNG / GIF / AVIF binary-search the quality; MP4 derives the bitrate directly; WebM is handled inside the encoder engine; MOV / Sprite / Seq don't support target size (the control hides or disables itself).

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Action Row

The bottom row: auxiliary buttons on the left, the big main export button on the right.

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1. 1Open folder: a toggle — when lit, the output folder opens automatically on completion; click again to turn it off.
2. 2Export path: opens the system folder picker to change where this export is saved. The long-term default lives in Settings › Output › Path.
3. 3Preview: opens a separate preview window that encodes Q=60 / 85 / 100 candidates side by side in one pass; click a card to deliver that quality as the final file — no re-encoding. Supports WebP / GIF / APNG / MP4 / AVIF.
4. 4Black BG export: hover to reveal ▶, click to export immediately on a black background (transparent areas matted black).
5. 5White BG export: same, matted white.
6. 6Custom name: edit the filename here when this optional add-on is enabled.
7. 7Main export button: export the current comp (or the batch queue). See the states below.
8. 8Export history: opens the history panel (off by default; appears when enabled in Add-on).

The four states of the main export button

• Idle: shows ▶ — click to start exporting.
• Exporting: the button is the progress bar, with a live percentage in the middle — render progress uses the native frame probe when available, with encoding and output-completion updates contributing to the overall percentage. It is not a frame-by-frame measurement of every encoder. Hover the button and click while exporting = cancel.
• Done: turns green with ✓ + file size (multi-comp batch finishes show ✓ Done); click the button to open the output folder and return to idle.
• Not enough items in platform mode: the button locks in gray (see Sticker Platform Mode).

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Minimal Mode

Switch the UI to Minimal in Settings › Interface and the whole panel collapses into a single button with directional shortcuts for frequently used settings:

• The minimal button: at rest it shows only ▶. Hover reveals the current format; use the wheel / trackpad to cycle through visible shortcuts. Release actions differ: left/up and supported in-range target-size gestures export; down opens Settings; dragging beyond the size ceiling opens an input capsule:
  • Drag left: scrub the quality percent (5% steps; on MP4 it's the logarithmic bitrate axis with continuous 1% steps), shown live on the button.
  • Drag up: pick the export background — white on the left, black on the right — as the button splits into two cells.
  • Drag down: summon Settings.
  • Drag right: scrub the target size in 0.5MB steps (1.0–6.0MB); past the ceiling, a capsule input pops up — enter a positive size and confirm with ✓. Target size is not available for MOV, Sprite or Seq.

Click = export. The same button morphs into a progress bar while exporting, and shows ✓ + size when done. Dragging invokes directional gestures; it is not a free-positioning handle.

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Batch Queue

Drag comps straight from the Project panel into Mini Bread (or select them and click ＋ in the queue header) to export them all in one go.

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1. 1Queue header: ＋ adds the selected comps; the number is the queue length; ✕ clears the queue. The whole panel is a drop zone — drag comps in to queue them.
2. 2Queue items: one row per comp (icon + name). The active row is highlighted in the theme color while exporting; finished rows fade with a strikethrough — progress at a glance.

Platform check badge: in platform mode it shows "Need X more", turning green with "✓ Ready" when the count is met.

Batch behavior and safeguards

• Hardware-aware scheduling: batch concurrency adapts to memory pressure, battery and CPU/GPU conditions — it pulls back to a single task under thermal throttling and at most two on battery, so your machine stays usable while the queue runs.
• Crash recovery: interrupted background jobs may be detected at the next launch. Recovery depends on retained intermediate files and job state; some work may need to run again.
• Atomic delivery: outputs are staged and checked before delivery. Keep backups, inspect important exports and do not update or uninstall while jobs are running.
• No overwriting: name collisions are avoided automatically (name_1, name_2…), so new exports never clobber old files.

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Sticker Platform Mode

Click a platform icon in the top selector (WeChat / LINE / Telegram / WhatsApp) and the panel enters Platform mode: it applies the built-in dimensions, size caps, timing limits and encoding format, hiding irrelevant controls. Queue your comps and export numbered sticker files with a technical compliance report. Uploading or importing the pack still happens through the platform's own workflow.

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1. 1Drop zone: with an empty queue it shows how many stickers the platform needs (e.g. WeChat "Needs 8–24"). Drag that many comps in.
2. 2Locked export button: while the count is off, the main button is grayed out and unclickable; it unlocks itself when the count is met — this is a queue-count check, not proof that the files or artwork will be accepted by the platform.

Built-in sticker targets

These are the targets built into version 1.0.0, not a live feed of platform rules. Check the current requirements before submitting: WeChat · LINE · Telegram (Bot API) · WhatsApp.

A pack export produces a <platform>_pack_<timestamp>/ folder: stickers numbered per official requirements, plus a self-contained _compliance.html compliance report — checking every sticker's format, dimensions, size, duration, frame rate and animation parameters, with official-source links for review before uploading. The output folder is revealed when Open folder is enabled.

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Export History

Enable History in Settings › Interface › Add-on and a history button appears in the action row. Successful exports are recorded while History is enabled, including available thumbnails and export settings.

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1. 1Search box + Clear: search by comp or file name; Clear wipes all records (with confirmation).
2. 2Format filters: filter the list by export format.
3. 3History items: three actions per record — Apply settings (load that export's full parameter set back into the panel), Show in folder (locate the file; moved or deleted files are marked missing), and Delete the record.

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Settings

Click the gear at top right. Narrow panels use four tabs: Output / Custom / Interface / Other; wider panels show the same sections in a single scrollable list. Accordion rows show their current value when collapsed. These screenshots show the narrow layout. The ✕ at top right is Cancel — it discards every change made in this session; ✓ Done accepts them.

Output

• Format: the shortcut editor — arrange 9 formats and 4 sticker platforms into the main panel's 1–8 visible shortcuts with drag ordering; the first shortcut (★) is the default export format and can't be removed.
• Quality: default quality for new sessions (slider + clickable percent, 90% by default).
• Path: default export folder — change it with the folder icon.

Custom

• Naming: file names are assembled from "ingredient pills" — Comp, Time (default), Spec (format + quality), Prefix, Suffix, Custom (fully custom name). Click pills to add/remove ingredients, with a live preview of the final file name above (e.g. 2608121631.webp).
• Time Format: appears when the Time ingredient is selected; seven precisions such as YYYYMMDDHHmmss.
• Separator: between ingredients — ∅ (none) / - / _ / + / . / space.
• Size: two custom resolution presets (default 240×240, 512×512) — these are the resolution shortcuts in the main panel's heart size library.
• Ratio: two custom ratio presets (default 1:1, 16:9); the library also offers fixed ratios 9:16 / 4:5 / 3:4 and scales Original / 2/3 / 1/2 / 1/3 / 1/6 — scaling down proportionally shrinks the file directly.

Interface

• Theme color: nine accent colors (default blue #0a84ff). Progress bar style: Spectrum (gradient) / Solid; Spectrum offers two flavors, Fresh (soft neighboring hues, default) / Rich (original saturated).
• UI mode: Standard / Minimal (see Minimal Mode).
• Add-on toggles: switch the action row's auxiliary buttons individually — Open folder, Set path, Preview, Black BG, White BG, History, Custom name. Open folder and Set path are on by default.
• Language: 11 interface languages (English, 简/繁中文, 日本語, 한국어, Español, العربية, Français, Português, Русский, Deutsch).

Other

• Quick toggles: Open folder after completion (on by default) and quality snap (snaps the slider to 5% steps, off by default).
• Presets: Save Current stores all current settings as a preset; Import pastes preset JSON from the clipboard — teammates can share configs and align export specs in one click.
• Reset: restore all defaults. About Plugin: product identity, version, consolidated legal notices, and links to the website (minibread.app), X (@MiniBreadApp) and the feedback email ([email protected], click to copy).

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FAQ

Can't find it in "Window › Extensions" after installing?

Make sure the ZXP installed successfully and restart After Effects; check the installer error report and host compatibility. A signed release should not require CEP debug mode; contact support if it remains unavailable.

MP4 export fails?

MP4's H.264/AAC encoding is done by the OS (VideoToolbox on macOS, Media Foundation on Windows) — Mini Bread does not use its bundled FFmpeg to encode MP4. On Windows N / KN editions, install the Microsoft Media Feature Pack first; any other failure reports a clear reason instead of silently degrading.

MOV (ProRes) export fails?

ProRes is rendered by AE's own output module; profile availability depends on the host version and installation. When a profile is unavailable the plugin fails with an explicit message — it never downgrades or substitutes another encoder.

Why does an exported animation look different in another app?

Format support varies by viewer. MP4 has no alpha; use a format with transparency when you need it. Animated AVIF, transparent WebM and sprite atlases require a compatible browser, viewer or engine. Test the exported file in its destination, not only in a desktop preview.

Where are my exported files?

The initial default is your Desktop. Set a persistent default in Settings › Output › Path, or use the path button for the current export. With Open folder on, the output is located automatically on completion; you can also use Show in folder from Export History anytime.

Why is the export button gray in platform mode?

The count doesn't meet the platform's requirement (e.g. the built-in WeChat queue accepts 8–24). Check the badge in the queue header — the button unlocks as soon as the count is met. This checks queue eligibility, not guaranteed platform acceptance.

Target size vs. the quality slider?

Target size is result-oriented: you set a size cap and the plugin derives the quality/bitrate; the slider is process-oriented: you set the quality directly. Either works alone; target size is recommended for platform delivery. MOV / Sprite / Seq don't support target size.

How do I uninstall?

Finish or cancel all exports, quit After Effects, and uninstall with the original installer. Exact locations of the extension folder, native components and user data (export history) are in Installation, removal & compatibility notes.