Video to GIF
Convert a video to a looping GIF at 10 to 24 fps and the width you choose, with a preview that plays before you save.
Runs entirely in your browser — your files and text never leave your device.
Drag & drop your file here, or
GIFs have no sound and grow large fast — for a tighter file, use a short clip (trim it first), a lower frame rate, or a smaller width.
Working on your device — keep this tab open until it finishes.
How to use
- Start with the shortest clip that makes your point, and drop it on the Video box.
- Set the Frame rate. 15 fps is selected already and reads fine in a chat window, while 24 fps is smoother and puts nearly two and a half times the frames of 10 fps into the file.
- Set the Width. 480 px suits most chat and issue threads. Original width keeps the source size, which on a screen recording is often 1920 px and a punishing file.
- Press Create GIF, let the progress bar run, then check the looping preview and press Download GIF. It always saves as animation.gif, so rename it if you're making several.
How this works
Frames come out of your clip one at a time. Converting video to GIF starts with a frame count, which is the duration times the frame rate you picked, so a 6-second clip at 15 fps is 90 frames, each grabbed at an evenly spaced moment and drawn onto a canvas. Every frame is then scaled to the width you chose, with the height following the source's aspect ratio, so a 1920x1080 screen recording at 480 px comes out 480 by 270.
GIF allows 256 colors per frame, and that is the format's oldest constraint. Each frame gets its own palette here, chosen from the pixels actually in that frame, so a clip that cuts to a new scene isn't stuck with colors picked for the old one. The cost is a faint shimmer on smooth gradients, where two neighboring frames round the same color slightly differently.
There is a hard ceiling of 600 frames. Past it the timestamps just spread further apart, so a 90-second video at 15 fps still plays back over 90 seconds, but you are watching under 7 frames a second and the motion stutters. Trim first if the clip is long. For anything beyond a few seconds, a small MP4 from the Video Compressor beats a GIF on size and on sharpness.
Good to know
- No sound, ever. The GIF format has no audio track, so speech in the clip is gone the moment it converts. If the words carry the point, keep it as a video.
- The only two levers on file size are the ones on screen. Halving the width takes the pixel count to a quarter, because the height halves along with it, and that is the quickest way to rescue a GIF that came out too heavy. Dropping the frame rate is the other lever.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my GIF 40 MB?
Frames times pixels, almost every time. Each frame is compressed on its own with a scheme from 1987, so the file grows roughly in step with both numbers. Going from 640 px wide to 320 leaves a quarter of the pixels, and going from 24 fps to 10 leaves about 40% of the frames. Do both and you are feeding the encoder around a tenth of the data.
How long a clip can I convert?
The encoder stops at 600 frames. At 15 fps that is 40 seconds of video, and at 24 fps it is 25. Longer clips still convert, but the frames spread out and the motion turns into a slideshow. Under ten seconds is where GIFs actually look right.
Does the sound come through?
There is nowhere for it to go. GIF holds pictures and timing and nothing else, which is why every GIF you have ever seen is silent. The audio track is dropped while the video is being decoded.
Why do the colors look blotchy?
256 colors is the entire palette a GIF frame gets. Skin tones and smooth gradients need far more than that, so the encoder picks the closest 256 and rounds everything else to them. Screen recordings and flat graphics survive this much better than camera footage.
Which video files can I bring in?
MP4, MOV, MKV and WebM are the containers it reads, and the decoding is done by the same engine a browser uses to play video normally. If the file plays in an ordinary tab, it will almost certainly convert here.
Can I choose which part of the clip becomes the GIF?
Not from here. Frames are sampled across the whole video, start to end, so a 30-second file gives you a 30-second GIF. Cut it down in Trim Video first, then bring the shorter file back.
Will the GIF loop by itself?
Every GIF written here loops forever. The encoder puts the old Netscape loop block in the file with a repeat count of zero, which every viewer reads as endless. The preview above the download button behaves the same way.
Is there a watermark or a daily limit?
Neither. Nothing is stamped on the frames and nothing counts how many you make. What comes out holds exactly the pixels that went in, at the size you set.
My vertical phone video came out huge. Why?
Width is what you set, and the height follows the source. A 1920x1080 recording at 480 px wide becomes 480x270, but a 1080x1920 phone clip at that same setting becomes 480x853. That is more than three times the pixels in every single frame, and the file size tracks it.
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