GIF

Manual

1. What GIF does

   GIF cuts a portion of a video file (MP4, MOV, WebM, etc.) and converts it into an animated GIF — handy for turning a clip into a short, loopable GIF you can drop into a chat or a post ("mp4 to gif" style conversion).

2. How to use it

   (1) Drag and drop a video file onto the drop zone, or click it to choose one. (2) Set a start time and a length in seconds (leave both blank to use the first 10 seconds automatically). (3) Pick a frame rate (10/15/24fps) and a width (320/480/640px). (4) Press the convert button; processing runs in two stages — palette analysis (1/2), then GIF export (2/2) — and a preview plus a download button appear once it finishes.

3. How the quality boost works

   This tool uses a two-pass ffmpeg approach — palettegen first analyzes an optimal 256-color palette for that specific clip, then paletteuse re-encodes the GIF using that palette. This produces noticeably less banding and dithering noise than a naive single-pass conversion.

4. Settings cheat sheet

   Here's what you can set, and the export limits.

   Setting	Options / limit
   Frame rate	10 / 15 / 24 fps
   Width	320 / 480 / 640 px
   Length (if unset)	First 10 seconds
   Length limit	30 seconds
   Warning shown past	10 seconds

5. About the GIF format

   GIF can only use up to 256 colors at once, so footage with lots of color or smooth gradients can look coarser than the source video. GIF also has no audio track — sound is always dropped. File size grows quickly with length, frame rate and width, so this tool defaults to 10 seconds or less and caps clips at 30 seconds.

6. Use case: a loopable GIF for social media

   Cut out the few seconds you most want to show and turn it into a loopable GIF ready to post. A width of 480px at around 15fps balances quality and file size well for most posts.

7. Use case: a reaction GIF for chat

   For short reaction GIFs on Slack, Discord and similar, keep the start time and length trimmed to a couple of seconds. A width around 320–480px keeps it light and quick to load in chat.

8. Tips for a smaller file

   For sharing on social media or chat, 480px width at around 15fps already looks good and keeps the file size reasonable. If you need a high-fidelity copy, keep the original MP4, or use the CONVERT tool for a different audio/video format instead.

9. How it works: in-browser processing and privacy

   Conversion happens entirely in your browser (a WebAssembly build of ffmpeg). Nothing is ever uploaded. The first run also has to load the conversion engine (about 30MB).

10. FAQ

    There's no sound.

    That's expected — the GIF format simply can't store audio. Share the original video file if you need the sound.

    The file is too large.

    Shorten the clip, or lower the frame rate and width (e.g. 10fps at 320px) — both make a big difference to GIF file size.

    How long does conversion take?

    It depends on the clip length, resolution and your device. The two-pass process takes a bit longer than a simple video conversion, and the first run also has to load the conversion engine (about 30MB).

    Which video formats are supported?

    MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV, AVI and most other video formats ffmpeg can read.

    Is there a length limit?

    Yes — GIF isn't great for long clips, so exports are capped at 30 seconds. A warning also appears for anything past 10 seconds, since file size tends to grow quickly beyond that.