Video to GIF
A clip goes in, a looping GIF comes out.
How to turn a video into a GIF
- Pick the frame rate and width first; 10 fps at 480 px is a good balance of smoothness and file size.
- Set the start second and length; GIFs are capped at 30 seconds because file size grows very fast.
- Add your video (MP4, WebM or MOV). The first ever use downloads the converter engine once; after that it starts instantly.
- Wait for the two encoding passes to finish, check the looping preview, and download the GIF.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is the GIF limited to 30 seconds?
- GIF is an old format that stores every frame almost like a separate image. Thirty seconds at 480 px is already tens of megabytes; longer clips belong in a video format like MP4 or WebM.
- Why does the first use download something?
- The converter is a full video engine (ffmpeg) compiled to run inside your browser. It is about 32 MB, downloads once, and your browser keeps it for next time. The video itself is never uploaded anywhere.
- How do I keep the GIF small?
- Lower the width to 320 px, use 10 fps, and keep the clip short. The width setting has the biggest effect; halving it roughly quarters the file size.
- Why does the conversion run twice?
- The first pass scans your clip to build the best 256-color palette; the second pass encodes the frames with it. That is what keeps colors from banding.
- Which engine does this use?
- The open-source ffmpeg project (LGPL license), unmodified, compiled to WebAssembly. Nothing runs on a server; the conversion happens on your own device, so speed depends on your hardware.