Turn a video clip into a GIF without uploading it
Where a video file does not fit, a looping GIF still does: in a README, a ticket, a chat reply or an email. This page cuts a section out of a video and writes it as an animated GIF on your own device. You choose the start and end, the frame rate, the width and the number of colors.
The GIF is written by an encoder that ships with this page, so no extra library is downloaded and no server takes part.
From video to GIF in six steps
- Drop a video onto the drop zone or press Select video. The editor opens once the browser has read the file.
- Move the preview slider and press Now next to Start and End, or type the seconds. New videos start with a three-second range.
- Pick a frame rate (5 to 20 FPS) and a width (240 to 800 px). The height follows the aspect ratio, and the video is never enlarged.
- Optionally lower the number of colors, change the speed, or choose to play the GIF once instead of looping it.
- Check the chips under the settings: they show the number of frames, the size in pixels and the length of the GIF. Press Create GIF.
- Look at the preview and press Download GIF. If it is too big, change the settings and create it again.
What decides the size of a GIF
A GIF has no video compression. Every frame is a picture with at most 256 colors, so the size grows with the number of frames and with the pixels in each one. Halving the width cuts the pixels to a quarter. Going from 15 to 10 FPS removes a third of the frames.
The encoder stores only the rectangle that changed since the previous frame. A screen recording with a still background comes out small, while camera footage in which every pixel moves stays large. Dithering smooths gradients but adds noise, which makes the file bigger and makes still areas shimmer. When a result is over 8 MB, the tool tells you so.
Limits worth knowing
- All frames are held in memory as raw pixels until the file is written. The tool refuses jobs with more than 600 frames or about 600 MB of pixels and says which setting to lower.
- The browser must be able to play the video. If it cannot decode the codec, the editor does not open; MP4 with H.264 and WebM work almost everywhere.
- GIF has no sound, so the audio track is dropped.
- GIF stores delays in hundredths of a second, with a minimum of 0.02 s. The tool rounds the delays so the total length does not drift.
- One palette serves the whole clip. A scene with a fade or a big change of color can show banding; try dithering or more colors.
Where it comes in handy
Bug reports: five seconds of the failing click path beat a paragraph of steps. Documentation: a short loop in a README shows a feature faster than a screenshot. Slow motion at 0.5× helps with an animation you want to study, and 2× shortens a long wait. Choose Play once for a tutorial step that should not repeat.
Where your video stays
On your device. The video plays in a local video element, frames are drawn onto a canvas, and the encoder runs in the page. Pressing the button sends no request, which you can confirm in the Network panel of your developer tools. The GIF exists in memory until you download it as a normal file.