Guide
How to make a GIF from a video
Five steps, no account, and the export settings spelled out rather than skipped. The whole job takes about a minute once you know which four numbers matter.
The five steps
- Open the video fileDrag the file onto the converter. No account, no sign in and no upload. The first step in most guides for this job is log in to our editor, which is a product tour rather than an instruction.
- Trim to the part you wantSet the start and end points. Almost every oversized GIF is oversized because it is too long, not because the settings were wrong. Three seconds is usually the whole idea.
- Set the width and frame rate480 pixels wide and 15 frames per second suits nearly everything. Go to 640 for a screen recording where text needs to be readable, and to 20 or 25fps for fast motion.
- Choose the palette and ditheringLeave the palette at 256 colours and pick Sierra2 4a dithering for footage with skin or sky, no dithering for screen recordings and flat graphics. This is the pair that decides whether gradients band.
- Convert and downloadCheck the estimated size before you press convert. The finished GIF appears with its real size next to the download button, so you know whether it fits where it is going.
Ready to do it? The converter is on the home page. Drop a video in, set the four numbers above and download the result. It runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded and there is no account step. Open the video to gif converter.
What a GIF is, and when not to make one
A GIF is a sequence of indexed images with a shared palette of at most 256 colours and a per-frame delay measured in hundredths of a second. It has no audio track, no motion compensation and no way to store more colour. It is from 1989 and it survives because every piece of software on earth can display one without a plugin.
That last point is the whole case for GIF, and it is worth checking before you start. If the destination is a modern website, a chat app or a phone, animated WebP is a third of the size at better quality, and a muted MP4 is smaller still. Make a GIF when something in the chain insists on one: an email client, an older forum, a README image tag, an internal tool nobody has updated. The rest of this page assumes you have checked and the answer is yes.
The export settings most guides skip
The top ranking tutorial for this search walks you through logging in, uploading and clicking export, and says nothing at all about frame rate, width, palette or dithering. Those four settings are the entire difference between a GIF that looks like the video and one that looks like a fax of it.
| Setting | Start at | Raise it when | Lower it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Width | 480 px | Text has to be readable | The file is too big |
| Frame rate | 15 fps | The motion is fast | It is a screen recording |
| Colours | 256 | Never, it is the ceiling | The content is flat or the file is big |
| Duration | under 10 s | Almost never | Always, if you can |
Frame rate has a wrinkle worth knowing: GIF stores a delay per frame in centiseconds rather than a frame rate, so 15fps actually comes out at about 14.3 and 30fps is not representable at all. The GIF frame rate reference has the table.
Every route, by device
| Device | Route | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Any browser | Drop the file into the converter. The Windows Photos app can export a GIF but gives you no control over frame rate or palette. |
| Mac | Any browser | Same route. QuickTime can trim the clip first, which is useful because trimming is the largest single saving. |
| iPhone or iPad | Safari, or the Shortcuts app | The browser route works and keeps the file on the device. The built in Video to GIF shortcut is faster when it works. |
| Android | Chrome, or Google Photos | The browser route gives you settings. Google Photos gives you one button and no control. |
| Photoshop | File, Import, Video Frames to Layers | Then Save for Web, Legacy. Real control over the palette, and a hard practical limit around 500 frames. |
| Command line | ffmpeg palettegen and paletteuse | The most control of all, and the same two commands this site runs. The exact syntax is on the quality page. |
The iPhone route has enough of its own quirks, including a native shortcut that fails on some clips and the Live Photo options, that it has a page of its own.
What usually goes wrong
- The GIF is 30MB. It is too long. Cut it before touching any other setting.
- The colours look blotchy. The palette was fixed rather than built from the clip, or the width is too high for 256 colours to cover. Drop to 480px.
- There is no sound. There never is. GIF has no audio track.
- It plays too fast or too slow. The frame rate you asked for was not representable and the encoder rounded. See the frame rate table.
- Transparent edges went black. The source had a real alpha channel and GIF only has one bit of transparency. The WebM to GIF page covers this.
- The file will not open at all. A codec the browser cannot decode, usually HEVC or ProRes. Re-export as H.264.
Common questions
How do I make a GIF from pictures rather than a video?
That is a different job and it needs an encoder that takes an image sequence. The tools here start from a video file. If you have a folder of stills, the shortest path is to make a video from them in any editor, or to run ffmpeg with a numbered input pattern, then convert that.
How do I make a GIF from a YouTube video?
You need the video file first. A browser cannot fetch a YouTube video for you, because YouTube blocks cross origin requests and its terms do not permit it. Save the clip through a route you are entitled to use, such as YouTube Premium offline downloads or your own uploads, then convert the file. There is a page on this specifically.
How do I make a GIF on Android?
Open the converter in Chrome on the phone and drop a video in from your gallery. It runs in mobile browsers, and because the file never leaves the device you are not uploading a large clip over mobile data. Google Photos also has a built in GIF export from its animation feature, which is faster but gives you no control over size.
How do I make a GIF on iPhone?
Safari handles this the same way Chrome does on Android. Apple also ships a Video to GIF shortcut in the Shortcuts gallery, which works when it works and fails silently on some clips. There is a full page covering both routes and the Live Photo option.
How do I make a GIF of myself?
Record a short clip with the front camera, keep it under five seconds, then convert it at 480px and 15fps. Front camera video is usually 1080p or 4K, which is far more than a GIF needs, so the downscale actually improves the result.
How do I make the GIF smaller?
Shorten it first, then drop the colour count, then the frame rate, then the width, in that order. That is the sequence of least visible damage. If the GIF is already made and the source is gone, the GIF compressor applies the same ladder to a finished file.
Do I need to install anything?
No. The converter is ffmpeg compiled to WebAssembly and it runs inside the browser tab. There is no app, no extension and no desktop download. The engine itself is about 30MB and is fetched once, then cached.
What video formats can I start from?
MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV, M4V, OGV and most AVI files. What matters is the codec rather than the extension: H.264, VP8, VP9 and AV1 decode in every browser, HEVC only on Apple hardware and on Windows with the codec extension installed, and ProRes not at all.
Next
When you are ready, the video to gif converter is the tool this guide describes. If the result is too big, the GIF compressor fixes a finished file, and high quality GIF settings explains the reasoning behind every number above.