Convert GIF Tools
Convert video to GIF, GIF to MP4, images to GIF and extract GIF frames — free and in your browser.
A GIF is not a video. It is a stack of still images with a delay between them, using a palette of at most 256 colours per frame and no sound at all. That is why a three-second clip that weighs 400 KB as MP4 can balloon past 8 MB as a GIF — and also why GIFs autoplay silently anywhere, in any chat window, email client or forum, without a player. Converting in either direction is really a decision about which of those trade-offs you want.
Which converter do you need?
- Video to GIF
- You have a clip in any common format and want a looping, soundless GIF out of part of it.
- MP4 to GIF
- Your source is an MP4 — by far the most common case, from phones, screen recorders and downloads.
- MOV to GIF
- Your clip came off an iPhone or a Mac screen recording.
- WebM to GIF
- You saved a clip from the web, where WebM is the usual format.
- AVI to GIF
- You are working with an older file, often from a camera or an archive.
- MKV to GIF
- Your source is an MKV container, typical of longer or higher-quality recordings.
- GIF to MP4
- A GIF is too heavy to send or upload. MP4 is usually five to ten times smaller for the same clip.
- Images to GIF
- You have a sequence of photos or exported frames and want them animated into one file.
- GIF to Images
- You need the individual frames out of an animation, to edit or to pick one from.
- GIF to JPG
- You only want a single still — a thumbnail or preview taken from the animation.
Why GIFs are so much larger than video
Modern video codecs compress across time: a frame is stored as the difference from the frame before it, so a clip where only a small part of the picture moves costs almost nothing to keep going. GIF has no such concept — every frame is essentially its own image, compressed only within itself with a scheme designed in 1987. A GIF also cannot store more than 256 distinct colours per frame, so photographic content has to be approximated with dithering, which adds visual noise that compresses badly and makes the file larger still. Converting a GIF to MP4 typically cuts the size by 80-90% with a better-looking result, which is why most platforms silently convert uploaded GIFs to video behind the scenes.
Three settings decide almost everything about your GIF
Length, dimensions and frame rate multiply together, and each is a direct lever on file size. Length is the blunt one: trim to the two seconds that matter instead of exporting ten. Dimensions matter quadratically — halving the width and height removes about three quarters of the pixels. Frame rate is where GIFs differ most from video: 10-15 frames per second is normal and looks fine for most content, while 30 fps doubles the file for motion smoothness few people notice in a small looping clip. Start by trimming, then reduce the size, then lower the frame rate — in that order, because each step makes the next one cheaper.
Colour banding and dithering
The 256-colour ceiling is the source of most GIF ugliness. A smooth sky or a face lit by a gradient has thousands of subtly different tones, and squeezing those into a small palette produces either visible bands or dithering — scattered dots that trick the eye into seeing intermediate shades. Dithering looks better but adds fine-grained noise that GIF compression handles poorly, so it inflates the file. Screen recordings, UI demos, cartoons and line art have naturally limited palettes and convert beautifully; sunsets, skin tones and dim footage rarely do. If a clip has to look good and is going somewhere that accepts video, send MP4.
Everything runs in your browser
These converters use ffmpeg.wasm — the real FFmpeg, compiled to WebAssembly and executed inside the page. Your clip is read from disk into memory, processed on your own CPU, and handed back as a download. Nothing is uploaded, so there is no queue, no size cap imposed by a server, and no copy of your footage sitting anywhere afterwards. The trade-off is that the engine downloads once on first use, and that processing speed depends on your machine rather than on a datacentre.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my GIF so much bigger than the video it came from?
Because GIF cannot compress across frames and is limited to 256 colours, so it stores far more data for the same clip. Shorter length, smaller dimensions and a lower frame rate are the three ways to bring it down.
Does converting to GIF keep the sound?
No. The GIF format has no audio track at all. If sound matters, keep the clip as video.
What is a reasonable size for a GIF?
Under about 5 MB for messaging and email, and under 2 MB if it is going on a web page. Many platforms enforce their own limits and will reject or re-encode anything larger.
How long can the clip be?
There is no hard limit, but GIF punishes length heavily. Two to five seconds is the sweet spot; much beyond that and video is the better format.
Is my video uploaded anywhere?
No. FFmpeg runs inside your browser via WebAssembly, so the file stays on your device throughout.