Video to GIF Converter
Trim, crop, caption and export to GIF or WebM. Clips up to 15 seconds.
Tips for better exports
- Keep the selection short: under 10 seconds downloads faster and stays shareable.
- Start with the Balanced preset; switch to Small for chat apps or Higher quality when detail matters.
- Use WebM when you want a sharper, smaller loop. Stick with GIF when the destination only accepts GIFs.
- Crop on the preview to cut extra background. Speed 0.5×–2× changes how long the export plays; slow motion makes a longer file.
- Captions are burned into the file (short text, top / center / bottom). Prefer MP4 or WebM sources: some phone formats (e.g. HEVC/MOV) may not play in every browser.
- First conversion downloads the engine once; later runs are quicker in the same session.
GIF or WebM: what you give up
| Property | GIF | WebM |
|---|---|---|
| Colour | 256 colours per frame, chosen from a generated palette | Full colour, no palette step |
| Compression | LZW on each frame, plus skipping pixels identical to the frame before | VP8 or VP9, which predicts motion from one frame to the next |
| Typical size, 5 s at 480 px wide | 2–5 MB | 200–600 KB |
| Audio | Not supported by the format at all | Supported, though exports here are silent |
| Transparency | One fully transparent colour, so edges look jagged | A real alpha channel with VP9 |
| Where it plays | Everywhere, including old email clients and upload forms that only accept images | Every current browser, but some upload forms still reject it |
| Looping | Loops on its own as an image | Needs a video element with loop and muted set |
Short version: GIF is a 1987 image format doing a job video formats do better. Choose it for reach (email, old clients, forms that only take images) and WebM for everything else.
Why GIF files get so big
A video codec encodes one full frame and then describes the next ones as movement plus small corrections. GIF cannot do that. It compresses each frame on its own with LZW and can only skip pixels that are identical to the frame before, which a handheld shot, film grain or a gradient sky ruins immediately. Every extra frame therefore costs close to a full image.
That makes file size roughly proportional to duration × frame rate × pixel count, with dithering adding noise on top. Three levers, in the order that pays best:
- Duration. Half the clip is half the file, with no quality cost anywhere in the frame.
- Width. Pixel count scales with the square: 640 px down to 320 px removes about 75% of the data.
- Frame rate. 10 fps is smooth enough for most screen and talking-head clips; 15 fps is worth it only for fast motion.
Cropping helps twice: fewer pixels, and less of the frame changing between frames.
Size limits by destination
| Destination | Practical limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| X / Twitter | 15 MB on the web, 5 MB in the mobile apps | Uploaded GIFs are re-encoded to video, so quality is capped anyway. Aim well under the limit. |
| Discord | Under 256 KB to animate inline | Larger GIFs upload fine but wait for a click before playing. Custom emoji are hard-capped at 256 KB. |
| Slack | No GIF-specific cap | Big GIFs simply load slowly in the channel. Custom emoji must be under 128 KB. |
| Under 1 MB | Outlook on Windows shows only the first frame, so make that frame carry the message. | |
| Reddit and Tumblr | 10 MB and up | Both re-encode long GIFs to video on upload. |
| A web page | Under 1 MB | A GIF blocks nothing but costs bandwidth and CPU on every loop; a muted looping video tag is cheaper. |
This converter accepts source files up to 100.0 MB and selections up to 15 seconds, since the whole job runs in your browser's memory.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my GIF larger than the video it came from?
Because GIF has no motion compression. An MP4 stores one full frame and then only what changed; a GIF stores something close to a whole image for every frame. A five second clip at 10 frames per second is ten near-complete images, which is how a 400 KB video becomes a 4 MB GIF.
How do I make a GIF smaller?
In order of effect: shorten the clip, drop the width, then lower the frame rate. Halving the width removes three quarters of the pixels, and every second you cut removes its frames entirely. If the destination accepts video, exporting WebM instead is usually a five to tenfold saving.
Should I export GIF or WebM?
Use WebM when the destination is a web page, a Discord message or anywhere a video file is allowed. It is far smaller and keeps full colour. Use GIF when the upload form only accepts images, or for email and older chat clients where video will not autoplay.
Is my video uploaded to a server?
No. The conversion runs in your browser using ffmpeg compiled to WebAssembly. The only network request is a one-time download of the conversion engine, about 30 MB uncompressed, from a public CDN. Your video file itself never leaves the device.
Why does my GIF look grainy or banded?
GIF allows 256 colours per frame. Gradients, skin tones and film grain do not fit in that palette, so the encoder dithers, scattering pixels of nearby colours to fake the missing ones. That looks like grain, and it also makes the file bigger because dithered noise compresses badly.
How long a clip can I convert?
The selection is limited to 15 seconds and the source file to 100.0 MB, because the whole job runs in your browser's memory. Longer clips make unusable GIF sizes anyway. Trim to the moment that matters.
Will the GIF have sound?
No. The GIF format has no audio track at all, and the WebM export here is encoded silently as well. If you need sound, keep the original video.