A palette generated from your clip
GIF supports only 256 colours. We analyse your specific clip and build a 128-colour palette from it, which looks dramatically better than the generic web-safe palette naive converters use.
Convert Video to GIF
Turn a short section of a video into a looping GIF you can drop into a doc, a chat or an issue.
Selected: 10.0s · GIF limit: 30 seconds
How to use it
- 1Upload the video and preview it in the browser.
- 2Set the start and end time — up to 30 seconds apart.
- 3Start the job; we build a custom palette and encode the GIF.
- 4Download it within 30 minutes.
What makes this one different
Tuned for size
Output runs at 12 fps and a maximum width of 720 px. GIF has no inter-frame compression worth the name, so those two numbers are what keep the file from reaching tens of megabytes.
Exact range selection
Preview the video in the browser, set start and end in seconds, and only that range is converted.
Formats and technical details
- Accepted input
- MP4, MOV, WebM and similar, up to 500 MB
- Maximum GIF length
- 30 seconds
- Frame rate
- 12 fps
- Maximum width
- 720 px, height scaled proportionally
- Colours
- 128, from a palette generated per clip
- Audio
- Not supported by the GIF format
What people use it for
- Showing a bug reproduction in a GitHub issue or a support ticket.
- Adding a short demo loop to documentation or a README.
- Making a reaction clip for chat where video autoplay is not available.
Limitations worth knowing
- GIF has no audio. If you need sound, an MP4 is the right format.
- Clips are limited to 30 seconds because GIF file size grows roughly linearly with frame count.
- Gradients and film grain band visibly at 128 colours — flat UI recordings convert far better than camera footage.
Why GIF files are so large
GIF was designed in 1987 for small, flat-coloured images. It compresses each frame with LZW and has no real concept of predicting one frame from the next, which is the single biggest reason modern video codecs are hundreds of times more efficient.
Every technique for making a GIF smaller therefore comes down to having fewer frames, fewer pixels or fewer colours. That is exactly the three-way trade-off behind our 12 fps, 720 px, 128-colour defaults.
When to use a GIF and when not to
Use GIF where autoplay of video is unreliable or unavailable: issue trackers, some wikis, email clients, older chat tools.
Everywhere else, an MP4 or WebM loop is smaller, sharper and supports sound. Modern platforms that offer 'GIF' buttons almost always store and serve MP4 behind the scenes.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my GIF so much bigger than the video?
GIF stores frames with very limited compression and no modern motion prediction. A five-second clip that is 400 KB as an MP4 can easily be 4 MB as a GIF. That is the format, not the converter.
Can a GIF have sound?
No. The format has no audio track at all. Platforms that appear to show GIFs with sound are actually playing MP4s.
Why is 30 seconds the limit?
Beyond that the file becomes too large to be useful anywhere a GIF is normally embedded. For longer loops, an MP4 is both smaller and better quality.
Why does my GIF look grainy or banded?
128 colours is not many. Footage with smooth gradients — skies, sunsets, subtle lighting — bands noticeably. Screen recordings and graphics with flat colours look almost perfect.
Can I change the frame rate?
Not on the free tier. 12 fps is the point where motion still reads as smooth while keeping the file manageable.
Related tools
What people usually do next.
Trim Video OnlineSet an exact start and end point while previewing the video, then download just that section.Compress Video OnlineMake a video small enough to send or upload, without turning it into a blocky mess.X / Twitter Video DownloaderPaste a link to a public post on X and download the video in the quality you need.
Up to 30 seconds per GIF. GIFs have no sound — that is a format limitation.