Free Online Image Optimizer What it's for

Turn a video clip into a GIF

The conversion happens in your browser: the clip is read off your device, taken apart frame by frame and rebuilt as an animation, and only the finished GIF is ever sent anywhere. Drag the handles on the filmstrip to choose which part to animate. A GIF can run for 10 seconds here, because it is a heavy way to store moving pictures — measured, 5 seconds at 480 pixels wide comes back around 1.5 MB, while the same clip at 1024 pixels for 10 seconds would be over 30 MB before it left the browser.

How to turn a video clip into a GIF

1

Choose a clip

MP4, MOV or WebM. Any length — a filmstrip of it appears so you can pick the part you want.

2

Drag the handles

The two handles on the filmstrip set where the animation starts and stops. The line underneath says how long the GIF will run before you commit to anything.

3

Save the GIF

It is built on your device, then optimised and handed back. It loops, it keeps its timing, and it plays anywhere a GIF plays.

Step by step, with screenshots: How to turn a short video clip into an animated GIF

Questions

Is my video uploaded?

No. The clip is read by your browser and taken apart there; it never goes to our servers. Only the GIF that comes out is sent, and only so it can be optimised before you save it. That is a genuine difference from the rest of this site, where the picture you drop in is uploaded.

Can I use more than 10 seconds of the clip?

Yes — select as much as you like. What is capped is how long the GIF itself runs, not how much of the video it covers: a wider selection is sampled across the whole of it and played at the same frame rate, so it comes out faster. Select 30 seconds and you get a 10-second animation at 3× speed, with the page telling you the factor before you convert. The cap exists because the cost is the number of frames — measured, 100 frames at 480 pixels wide is about the same size whether they span 10 seconds or sixty.

Why is my GIF so much bigger than the video?

That is the format, not the conversion. A modern video codec looks at what changed between frames; a GIF stores every frame as a whole picture with at most 256 colours. Expect the GIF to be several times the size of the MP4 that made it. If the place you are sending it accepts a video, send the video.

My iPhone clip will not convert.

iPhones record in HEVC by default, and not every browser can decode it. Safari on the iPhone itself can, so try it there. On a computer, either set the phone to record in the “Most Compatible” format in Settings, or convert the clip to an ordinary MP4 first. The page says so when it cannot read a file rather than handing you an empty result.

Can I control the size and smoothness?

Yes — the width and the number of frames a second are both in the settings, alongside the part of the clip you picked. Fewer frames a second is the cheapest saving by far, and 10 is enough for most things. The width is capped at 640 pixels because beyond that a GIF of any length stops being something you can send.

Is there any sound?

No. A GIF has no audio track at all, so the sound is discarded. If the sound matters, what you want is a video, not a GIF.

Related: Make an animated GIF smaller · Convert GIF to JPG · Compress images in bulk