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Common fix · Video

Make a GIF from a video

By Updated How we write these

1 min read

What you’ll end up with

A looping GIF small enough to post, with no watermark and no upload.

GIFs are enormous by modern standards — the format has no motion compression and is limited to 256 colors — so the difference between a usable GIF and a 30 MB one is entirely in the settings you choose.

Three numbers decide it: how many seconds, how many frames per second, and how wide. Get those right and the rest takes care of itself.

What to do

  1. Pick the seconds that matter

    Keep it short. Two to four seconds is the sweet spot for anything meant to loop, and every extra second is proportionally more file.

    Open Video to GIF

  2. Drop the frame rate and the width

    10 to 15fps looks right for a GIF and is half or a quarter of the frames of the source. 480 px wide is plenty for something viewed inline in a chat or a README.

  3. Check the size before you save

    The tool shows what you are about to get. If it is still too big, take a second off the length before you take quality off the picture.

Settings that work

Recommended settings
Length 2–4 seconds
Frame rate 10–15fps
Width 480 px for chat and documents

Worth knowing

  • If the destination will accept a video, send one instead: the same clip as an MP4 is typically ten to twenty times smaller and looks better. GIF vs MP4 covers when a GIF is genuinely the right answer.

Questions

Why is my GIF so large?

GIF stores every frame as a separate image with no motion compression. Length, frame rate and width are the three things that actually control the size.

Can I make a GIF without a watermark?

Yes. Video to GIF adds nothing to the output, because there is no server cost to recover.

What frame rate should a GIF be?

10–15fps. Higher rarely looks better and multiplies the file size.

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