Video to GIF
Turn a few seconds of video into an animated GIF, at a size you choose.
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or drag it here
MP4, MOV, WebM, or MKV
- Takes
- MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, and MKV. AVI, WMV, and FLV cannot be read in a browser and are refused.
- Size
- The video can be any length — only the section you pick is read. That section is held in memory as raw frames while the palette is chosen across all of them, which is why it is capped at 30 seconds: a minute at 640px would be several gigabytes before a byte was written, and the resulting GIF would be far too large to send anyway.
Your file never leaves your browser during processing
How it works
To turn a video into a GIF, drop it onto this page, set the start and end of the section you want, and choose a width, frame rate, and number of colours — the expected size updates as you do. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded.
The section you choose is decoded by your browser one frame at a time, scaled to the width you picked, and sampled at the frame rate you asked for — taking frames at the moments needed rather than decoding everything and discarding most of it, which is what keeps 10 fps out of a 60 fps recording cheap. Those frames are then quantised to a palette and written as a GIF89a. Nothing is uploaded, and the counter under the tool watches the network during the whole process and stays at zero bytes sent.
The three controls each attack one part of the same problem, because a GIF's size is simply its width times its height times its frame count. Halving the width quarters the pixels. Dropping from 20 fps to 10 halves the frames. Reducing the colours makes each pixel cheaper to store, at the cost of banding in gradients. There is no quality setting beyond these, because GIF has no quality knob: it stores its pixels losslessly, so the only way to make one smaller is to have fewer or simpler pixels.
Two things happen automatically that make a much bigger difference than any of the controls. Only the part of each frame that changed since the one before it is stored, and the pixels that did not change are marked transparent so the previous frame shows through — on a screen recording, where most of the picture holds still, that is most of the saving. And a frame identical to the one before it is not stored at all; its time is added to the previous frame instead, so a still title card at the start of a clip costs one frame rather than thirty.
The palette is chosen once across every frame rather than per frame. A per-frame palette would be slightly more accurate and look considerably worse, because the colours would shift from frame to frame and the whole animation would shimmer. Dithering is offered separately and is off by default: it removes the visible bands from skies and gradients by scattering the error as fine grain, but that grain differs in every frame, which defeats the frame-to-frame saving above and can double the file.
It is worth being clear about when a GIF is the right answer. It is much larger than the same clip as a video — often twenty times — has no sound, and is capped at 256 colours. It earns its place only where a video will not play: an email, an old forum, a README on a code host, a chat client that will not accept an upload. Anywhere modern, the MP4 you already have is smaller and looks better.
FAQ
Why is my GIF so large?
Because a GIF stores every frame as pixels, with no compression between frames beyond storing what changed, and cannot use the motion prediction that makes video small. Reducing the width helps most, then the frame rate, then the colour count. The expected size updates as you change them so you can find a combination that fits.
How long a GIF can I make?
Up to 30 seconds. That is a real limit rather than a policy: the frames are held in memory as raw pixels while the palette is chosen across all of them, and beyond that length both the memory and the resulting file stop being reasonable.
Is my video uploaded?
No. Decoding, palette selection, and GIF writing all happen in your browser, and the network counter under the tool stays at zero bytes sent throughout.
Does the GIF have sound?
No. The GIF format has no provision for audio at all — that is one of the reasons an MP4 is the better file anywhere that will play one.
Should I turn dithering on?
Turn it on for footage with gradients — skies, sunsets, soft studio lighting — where you can see banding without it. Leave it off for screen recordings, animation, and anything with flat colour, where it adds grain, adds size, and improves nothing.
What frame rate should I use?
10 fps is the usual choice and reads as smooth for most footage. 15 or 20 is worth it for fast movement and costs proportionally more. Below 8 the stepping becomes obvious. The tool will not offer a rate higher than the source has, since that would only store duplicate frames.
What formats can I convert?
MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, and MKV. AVI, WMV, and FLV cannot be read in a browser and are refused. To go the other way, the GIF to video tool converts an animated GIF into an MP4.