A GIF is the simplest way to share a short animation. It plays in chat apps, emails, documents and web pages without a video player. Typical uses are a product seen from several angles, a step-by-step how-to, a before and after flip, a small stop-motion clip or a sequence from burst photos.
The first time you create a GIF, a small encoder library (gifenc) is downloaded into your browser. Your images are processed on your device and are not sent anywhere.
How to use it
- Add two or more images. Each image becomes one frame.
- Put the frames in the right order.
- Set the frame delay in milliseconds (default 500) and choose whether the GIF loops forever or a set number of times.
- Choose the output width, from 240 to 1080 px. All frames are fitted to the shape of the first frame, and any empty space is filled with the background color.
- Choose the color quality.
- Watch the live preview, then download the GIF.
Getting the timing right
The delay is how long each frame stays on screen. Converting it to frames per second makes it easier to imagine:
| Delay | Frames per second | Feels like |
|---|---|---|
| 1000 ms | 1 | Slow slideshow, time to read text |
| 500 ms | 2 | Default; clear step-by-step changes |
| 200 ms | 5 | Quick flip-book |
| 100 ms | 10 | Simple, jerky motion |
Smooth motion needs many frames with small changes between them; with only a few photos, a slower delay usually looks more intentional. Many browsers also treat extremely short delays as 100 ms, so settings close to zero may not play any faster.
Why GIFs look grainy and get large
GIF is an old format with a hard limit of 256 colors per frame. Photos contain thousands of shades, so the encoder has to pick a palette and mix colors with fine dot patterns. Smooth skies and skin tones can look grainy or banded. Screenshots, illustrations and graphics with flat colors look much cleaner.
GIF compression is also weak compared with modern formats, so the file grows quickly with width and the number of frames. To keep it small:
- Use a smaller width. 480 px is plenty for most chat messages.
- Use fewer frames, and frames that change only in part of the image.
- Crop all photos to the same shape first with Crop image, so no frame needs background padding.
For long clips, a video file is far smaller than a GIF, but this tool works with still images only. To learn more about the format, see the GIF format page. To go the other way and save a frame from an existing GIF, use GIF to PNG.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my GIF file so large?
Each frame stores up to 256 colors with simple compression, so size grows with width, frame count and photo detail. Reduce the width, remove frames, or use images with fewer colors.
Can I make a GIF from a video?
Not directly. This tool builds GIFs from still images. Save the frames you want from the video as images first, then add them here as frames.
Why do the colors look different from my photos?
GIF allows at most 256 colors per frame, so similar shades are merged and mixed with dot patterns. That is a limit of the format, not of your photos.
Can I make the GIF play only once?
Yes. Instead of looping forever, set the number of times the animation should play.