Turn a moment of a video into an animated GIF (or an animated WebP): a reaction, a short how-to, a product in motion, a game highlight. Choose where it starts, how long it lasts, how smooth and how wide it is, and which part of the picture to keep.
How to make a GIF from a video
- Upload the video (MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI and more; up to 2 GB).
- Enter the Start and the Length (up to 60 seconds). Only that part is read.
- Pick the Frame rate and Width. The defaults, 12 fps and 480 pixels, give smooth, small GIFs.
- Optionally draw the Area to keep, and choose how the GIF loops.
- Download the GIF.
Why these GIFs look better
A GIF can show only 256 colours per frame. Instead of a generic palette, a palette is made for your clip from all of its frames, and the colours in between are mixed by dithering:
- Pattern (the default) uses a regular dot pattern that keeps files small.
- Smooth gives the softest gradients, with larger files.
- Floyd–Steinberg is the classic error-diffusion look.
- None gives flat colours, the smallest files, and visible bands in gradients.
Only the parts of each frame that change are stored again, which keeps GIFs of mostly still scenes small. Fewer colours (128, 64 or 32) make files smaller still.
Animated WebP
Animated WebP has millions of colours and is usually much smaller than a GIF of the same clip. Current browsers show it; where GIF is the only option, choose GIF.
Good to know
- Upright phone videos stay upright, and videos with non-square pixels keep their shape.
- The frame rate is never higher than the video's own; GIF frames can't be shorter than 1/50 s.
- Transparent videos (WebM with transparency, ProRes 4444, QuickTime Animation) give transparent animations. A GIF pixel is either clear or solid, so soft edges become hard; animated WebP keeps them.
- GIFs have no sound.
- Limits: 60 seconds, 1,500 frames and 1,280 pixels wide per animation.