Six seconds of video,
and you know the size first.
Turn MP4, MOV or WebM into a GIF. Pick the exact section, crop it, and see what it will actually weigh before you render — measured from your own clip rather than guessed from a formula. Free, no account, and the video never leaves your browser.
Drop a video here
MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV and AVI. Up to 500 MB. Nothing is uploaded — the GIF is made on your device.
The GIF is made in this tab and your video is never uploaded. There is nothing on a server to delete, because nothing was ever sent.
Why this one
The size is measured, not guessed
Most converters multiply width by frame rate by length and call it an estimate. Tested on three clips at identical settings, the real answer ranged from 13 KB to 15 MB — over a thousandfold. So this encodes a second of your actual clip to find out how heavy it is, then every reading after that is exact to about ten per cent.
Frame rates that are real
A GIF stores the gap between frames in hundredths of a second, so only some rates exist. Ask for 30 and you get 33.33 — your video plays back 11% fast. The four offered here are the ones a GIF can hold exactly.
A palette built from your clip
A GIF holds 256 colours at most. Without a first pass to choose them, ffmpeg falls back to a fixed palette from 1996 and everything bands. This looks at your footage first — which costs size rather than saving it, and is what "high quality" actually means here.
Only the part you want
Drag two handles along the timeline and preview exactly the section you are about to convert. Nothing outside it is ever decoded, so a short clip out of a long recording is quick rather than slow.
Square, vertical, or as it was
Crop to 1:1, 4:5, 16:9 or 9:16 from the centre. The crop is computed against the frame itself, so portrait video shot on a phone comes out the right way up rather than sideways.
Nothing is uploaded
A full build of FFmpeg runs inside your browser tab. The video is read from your disk, converted on your own machine, and handed back. There is nothing on a server to delete, because nothing was ever sent.
When you should not make a GIF
GIF was designed in 1987 and it shows. It holds 256 colours a frame, it has no sound, and it stores every frame as a separate image with no compression between them. How badly that hurts depends on what you are converting, and the swing is enormous: a gradient-heavy clip measured 2,985 KB as a GIF against 80 KB as WebP, while a flat graphic clip measured 248 KB as a GIF against 609 KB as WebP — the same comparison, reversed. That is exactly why this tool measures your clip instead of quoting a rule of thumb at you.
It is also worth knowing that most of the "GIFs" you see are not GIFs. Instagram and TikTok will not take one as an upload at all, and X converts them to video on the way in. If your destination is a social platform, you want a video file.
Where a GIF still earns its place is anywhere the thing has to behave like an image and play itself: a README on GitHub, a documentation page, an email, a chat window, a reaction. That is a real set of uses, and it is what this tool is for — which is why it tries to give you the smallest honest file rather than the largest impressive-sounding one.
And because a GIF cannot be made to match the video it came from — 256 colours a frame is the format, not a setting — the tool will hand you the same clip as WebP or MP4 instead, at full colour, if what you actually wanted was a short loop rather than a GIF specifically. Same trim, same crop, same frame rate. Both play in every current browser.
The format itself is worth ten minutes if you make GIFs often — what a GIF actually is covers the 256-colour limit, the frame rates it can and cannot hold, and why identical settings can produce a 13 KB file or a 15 MB one.
If it is the sound you are after rather than the pictures, the video to MP3 tool does that, and the rest of the set is on the tools page.
Questions
How do I convert a video to a GIF?+
Drop the video onto this page, drag the two handles to pick the section you want, choose a width and frame rate, and press Create GIF. It is converted inside your browser and downloads straight back — no upload, no account, no queue.
What frame rate should I use for a GIF?+
20 frames per second for most things. GIF stores the delay between frames in hundredths of a second, so the only rates it can hold exactly are 10, 20, 25 and 50 — and a converter offering 15 or 30 is quietly rounding, which plays your video back at 14.29 or 33.33 fps. Thirty is the worst offender: it speeds the result up by about 11%.
Why is my GIF so large?+
Because GIF is an old format that stores each frame as a paletted image with no motion compression at all. Size depends far more on how much movement is in the clip than on any setting: at identical settings, a nearly still shot made a 13 KB file and a noisy one made 15 MB. To make one smaller, cut the length first, then the width, then the frame rate — in that order.
How long should a GIF be?+
Under about 15 seconds. Past that the file grows quickly and many places that accept GIFs start refusing them. If you need something longer, an MP4 is almost always the better answer.
Can I convert a MOV from my iPhone?+
Yes. MOV, MP4, WebM, MKV, AVI and M4V all work the same way. Portrait video recorded on a phone comes out upright, because the crop and scale are computed against the frame as it is actually decoded rather than against the dimensions stored in the file.
Is my video uploaded anywhere?+
No. FFmpeg is compiled to WebAssembly and runs in the browser tab, so the file never leaves your device. That is also why there is no limit on how many GIFs you make: they cost us nothing.
Is there a file size limit?+
About 500 MB for the video going in. The work happens in a browser tab and a tab has a memory ceiling — past roughly that size the tab is killed, which would waste the whole wait. The GIF that comes out is limited by nothing but good sense.
Should I use a GIF at all?+
Often not, and it is worth knowing before you spend the time. Instagram and TikTok do not accept GIF uploads at all, and X converts them to video on the way in. Use a GIF where the thing genuinely has to behave like an image: a README, an email, a chat window, a documentation site. Everywhere else, the MP4 option here is smaller and looks better. The tool measures your actual clip in each format, so you can switch between them and compare real numbers rather than take anyone's word for it.
Can I get the same quality as the original video?+
Not as a GIF, and not at any setting. A GIF holds 256 colours per frame; a video frame holds up to 16.7 million. That is the format rather than a knob, and it is why gradients, skies and skin tones band in a GIF no matter what you choose. This tool will also give you WebP or MP4, which keep the video's own colours and have no palette at all — so if what you wanted was a short loop rather than a GIF specifically, pick one of those and the quality question goes away.
Which is smaller — GIF, WebP or MP4?+
It depends entirely on the footage, which is why this tool measures rather than guesses. Measured on two real clips at identical settings: a gradient-heavy one came out at 2,985 KB as a GIF and 80 KB as WebP, while a flat graphic one came out at 248 KB as a GIF and 609 KB as WebP — the ranking reverses. MP4 was the smallest in both cases. Switch format in the tool and the estimate updates for your clip.
What does the quality setting change?+
For a GIF, how many colours the palette holds and how the encoder fakes the ones it is missing: Low uses 64, Standard 128, and High and Maximum the full 256. For WebP and MP4 it sets the compression level instead, because those formats are not limited to a palette at all.
Can I make the GIF smaller after making it?+
Yes — and this one goes back to your video to do it, rather than squeezing the GIF again. Re-compressing an image that has already been cut down to 128 colours makes it look worse than simply rendering it again from the source, which is still open in the tab.
Do I need an account?+
No. Everything here works without one and there is no limit on how often you use it.
Does the GIF have sound?+
No — the GIF format has no audio at all, which is one of the reasons most 'GIFs' on social platforms are quietly MP4 files. If you want the sound from a video instead, the video to MP3 tool does that.
Next to this
Everything here runs in your browser, free and without an account.