How to make a GIF from a video
Updated:
GIFs play by themselves, silently, in chats, forums, documentation and email, places where a video might not autoplay or might not be allowed at all. Making a good one is mostly about choosing the right few seconds, because GIF files grow very fast. We measured exactly how fast.
Convert the clip
- Open MP4 to GIF (MOV to GIF and WebM to GIF work the same way).
- Upload the video.
- Download the GIF and drop it into your chat, ticket or page.
What the converter does
It takes the first 30 seconds of the video, plays them at 12 frames per second and scales them to at most 480 pixels wide, keeping the proportions. Instead of a generic colour table, it builds a palette of 128 colours from your clip itself and blends neighbouring colours with a fine dot pattern, which keeps skin tones and skies far smoother than a standard web palette would.
What we measured
We made GIFs from the first 5, 10 and 30 seconds of a 1280 × 720 video and compared each with the same seconds saved as an MP4 at the same 480-pixel width. Two things stand out. GIF size grows faster than the length, because every frame is stored almost whole. And the same moving picture as MP4 is 16 to 22 times smaller.
| Length | GIF | Same clip as MP4 | GIF is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 seconds | 0.88 MB | 55 KB | 16 times larger |
| 10 seconds | 3.3 MB | 176 KB | 19 times larger |
| 30 seconds | 17.7 MB | 806 KB | 22 times larger |
Keep it small and sharp
Trim the clip to the moment that matters before converting: three to six seconds is ideal, and our 5-second GIF stayed under a megabyte while the 30-second one passed 17. Screen recordings and flat graphics look excellent and stay small. Camera footage with skies, skin or gradients is harder for any palette and can show faint banding. A GIF has no sound, so pick a moment that works silently.
When a video is better
If the place you are posting accepts video, a short MP4 or WebM is much smaller than the same GIF and looks better. That is why many sites that show you a "GIF" are actually playing a muted, looping video. You can turn a GIF you already have into one: we converted our three GIFs back with GIF to MP4 and GIF to WebM.
| GIF | As MP4 | As WebM |
|---|---|---|
| 5-second GIF (0.88 MB) | 72 KB | 42 KB |
| 10-second GIF (3.3 MB) | 221 KB | 116 KB |
| 30-second GIF (17.7 MB) | 1.2 MB | 663 KB |
Which to use where
Use a GIF where video does not autoplay or is not accepted: email, many issue trackers and documentation tools, older forums and chat apps. Use MP4 for social networks and most messaging apps, which accept video directly. Use WebM on your own website: it was the smallest of all in our test and every current browser plays it.
How we tested
The source is "Selfie del futuro" by Alberto Mardegan, a 1280 × 720 clip from the sample content that ships with Ubuntu. We cut its first 5, 10 and 30 seconds and converted them with this site's video to GIF tool, then converted the GIFs back with GIF to MP4 and GIF to WebM, all through the same FFmpeg commands our servers run. The comparison MP4s use the same width and a standard quality setting. Sizes depend heavily on how much moves in the clip; the proportions are what to remember.
Further reading: W3C — Graphics Interchange Format (GIF89a) specification