Convert video to GIF
Make an animated GIF from any video clip, with a proper per-clip colour palette so it looks far better than a quick screen-capture GIF. Pick the exact moment with a start time and duration, and it all renders on your device.
Drop files here or click to browse
Results
How to convert video to GIF
- Drop a video. MP4, MOV, WebM and most other formats are accepted.
- Set the start time and duration in seconds to pick the moment you want.
- Choose a width and frame rate. 480 px at 12 fps is a good default for chat and social.
- Click make GIF, then download it.
What makes a good GIF
GIF is a thirty-year-old format with no real video compression, a 256-colour limit and no sound. It survives because it plays everywhere, loops automatically and needs no player: chat apps, email, forums, documentation, GitHub issues and presentations all display it inline. The trade-off is size. A GIF is often ten times larger than the same clip as MP4, so the craft of making a good one is choosing a short moment and modest dimensions.
Three settings control almost everything:
- Duration. Two to six seconds is the sweet spot. Under ten is fine. Anything longer should really be a video.
- Width. 320 to 480 px covers chat and social; 640 to 800 px for documentation and websites where detail matters.
- Frame rate. 10 to 15 fps looks smooth enough for most motion. 20 fps for fast action; 8 fps for slow reveals and screen recordings.
Why palette generation matters
A GIF can only use 256 colours per frame. Quick converters use one generic palette for every clip, which is why their GIFs look grainy and posterised. The tool above does it the proper way: it scans your specific clip first, builds a palette of the 256 colours that best represent it, then encodes every frame with that palette using dithering to smooth gradients. The result is visibly cleaner colour, particularly in skin tones, skies and gradients, at no extra file size.
Expected file sizes
| Settings | Approximate size |
|---|---|
| 3 s, 320 px, 10 fps | 400 KB to 1 MB |
| 5 s, 480 px, 12 fps | 1.5 to 4 MB |
| 5 s, 640 px, 15 fps | 4 to 8 MB |
| 10 s, 800 px, 20 fps | 15 to 30 MB |
Sizes vary a lot with content: a talking head on a plain background compresses far better than handheld footage with a moving background. Slack and Discord accept GIFs up to 8 MB comfortably; many forums and email clients start to struggle above 2 to 3 MB.
Choosing the moment
Use the start time and duration fields rather than converting the whole clip. Scrub through the video in any player, note the second the moment begins, enter it as the start, and give it two to five seconds. If the loop point jumps, try trimming a fraction of a second off either end so the first and last frames are similar.
Typical uses
- Reaction clips and memes for chat and social.
- Short product demonstrations for a listing or a landing page.
- Bug reproductions attached to a ticket or a GitHub issue.
- Step-by-step UI walkthroughs in documentation and help articles.
- Animated previews in email, where video does not play.
Everything renders in your browser using FFmpeg, so the source clip is never uploaded.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my GIF so large?
GIF is an old format with no real video compression, so every frame is stored almost in full. Size grows with width, frame rate and duration. Halve any of those and the file roughly halves. Keep clips under about ten seconds.
Why does the GIF look better than ones from other tools?
The converter generates a 256-colour palette from your specific clip and applies dithering, instead of using a generic palette. Colours and gradients come out much cleaner.
Can I make a GIF from just part of the video?
Yes. Set the start time in seconds and the duration. Leave duration at 0 to use the whole clip, which is only sensible for very short videos.
Is the video uploaded?
No. The GIF is rendered by an FFmpeg engine running in your browser, so the clip never leaves your device.
Your files never leave your device
Every tool on Squishly Tools is 100% free and runs entirely inside your browser. Your images and documents are processed on your own computer and are never uploaded to a server. There are no accounts, no watermarks and no catch.