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Video to GIF

Turn a clip from an MP4, WebM or MOV into an animated GIF. Pick the exact part you want with the video playing right there, choose the frame rate and the width, and get the file with its real size and a preview of the result. Your video is read by your own browser and never leaves your computer, which is the part most converters cannot claim.

How to convert a video to GIF

  1. 1

    Choose your video

    Drag the file onto the box or click to pick one. Anything your browser can play works: MP4 with H.264, WebM, and most MOV files. Nothing is uploaded, so a big file does not mean a long wait for an upload bar.

  2. 2

    Pick the part you want

    The video appears with normal playback controls, and a slider with two handles sets the start and the end. Nobody wants a ten-minute GIF, so the range starts at the first five seconds.

  3. 3

    Set the frame rate and size

    Ten frames per second and 480 pixels wide is a good default for sharing. The tool tells you how many frames that will produce before it starts, and warns you if the range is too long.

  4. 4

    Convert and download

    Frames are read one by one, then encoded into a GIF. You get the real file size and the animation playing, so you can adjust and convert again if it is heavier than you wanted.

What makes it different

  • The video never leaves your computer

    It is read by your browser's own video player, straight from your disk. Most converters upload your clip to a server, which means a stranger holds a copy of whatever you were recording.

  • The timing actually matches the video

    A GIF stores frame timings in hundredths of a second, so 15 frames per second cannot be represented exactly. The frame times are worked out from the value the format can really hold, which is why the result does not slowly drift out of step with the original.

  • You see what you will get before converting

    The number of frames is shown as you move the range and change the frame rate, so you find out that a minute at 25 frames per second is too much before waiting for it, not after.

  • It reads any format your browser plays

    Using the browser's own player means no codecs to ship and no format list to maintain. If the video plays in your browser, its frames can be read.

  • No watermark and no queue

    The conversion runs on your own machine, so there is no upload, no server queue, no watermark, and no paid tier to remove one.

Supported formats

Any video your browser can play: MP4 with H.264 works everywhere, WebM works in every modern browser, and most MOV files work too. Some MOV and MKV files use codecs like ProRes or H.265 that browsers do not decode — if the video does not play in your browser, its frames cannot be read either. The output is always an animated GIF.

Frequently asked questions

Is my video uploaded to a server?
No. It is read directly from your disk by your browser and the GIF is built there too. Nothing is sent anywhere, which also means the size of your file does not cost you an upload.
Why is my GIF so much bigger than the video?
Because GIF is a format from 1987 with no motion compression: every frame is stored almost whole, with at most 256 colours. A video codec stores only what changed between frames. That is why a five-second clip of 300 KB can become a GIF of several megabytes, and why lowering the width and the frame rate helps so much.
How long can the clip be?
It is limited by frames rather than by seconds: up to 2000, which is over three minutes at ten frames per second. The tool shows the count as you adjust the range, because everything is held in your browser's memory.
Why does it say 14.3 frames per second when I asked for 15?
Because a GIF stores each frame's duration in hundredths of a second. 15 frames per second is 66.67 milliseconds, which the format cannot hold, so it becomes 70 — that is 14.3 per second. The frames are captured at that same pace, so the GIF stays in step with the video instead of drifting.
Can I edit the result?
Not from here yet. If you want to reorder frames, change individual timings or draw on them, download the GIF and open it in the GIF Splitter, which is the full editor.
Can I paste a link to a video instead?
No, and that is deliberate. Fetching a remote video would mean our server downloading hundreds of megabytes on your behalf, which is exactly the kind of open relay we refuse to run. Local files have no such problem.