Video to APNG for Crisp, Full-Color Animation
Make an Animated PNG from a Video Segment
Convert a selected video segment into an animated PNG, also called APNG. Set the start time, duration, width and frame rate, then choose the PNG compression effort. APNG preserves full-color frames without GIF’s 256-color palette limit, but can produce large files. It has no audio, and converting an opaque video does not remove its background or create transparency.
Cost: Free to use. File size and usage limits apply.
- Input
- A video with at least 5 seconds
- Setting
- Start at 2s · duration 3s · output APNG
- Output
- A 3-second animated PNG without sound
An opaque source remains opaque. Choose a smaller width or frame rate if the APNG is too large.
How to convert a video to animated PNG
Upload one video
Click Upload a video to convert to APNG or drop a file onto the preview. MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, M4V, MPEG and OGV files up to 200 MB are accepted. Videos you already uploaded or created with other tools on this site are listed under Uploads.
Mark the clip
The first 5 seconds (or the whole video, if it is shorter) are selected by default. Drag the Start and End handles on the timeline below the preview, or type exact values in seconds into Start, End and Duration (steps of 0.1 seconds). The timeline header shows the selected range and its length. The preview plays the selected range, so you can check the loop before converting.
Pick a width and frame rate
Under Output, choose a width from 240px to 800px or Original, then a frame rate under FPS. The defaults are 480px and 12 fps.
Keep compression effort at 6 for a first try
Compression effort only trades encoding time for file size. The picture is identical at every level.
Convert, check the size, download
Click Convert to APNG. The animation plays in the preview and the side panel shows its file size. Use Download to save it, or Continue editing to change the clip or output settings and convert again.
Settings explained
Width, frame rate and clip length decide almost everything about the file size. Compression effort comes last.
- Start, End and Duration
- Times in seconds. Duration is End minus Start, with a minimum of 0.1 seconds. Start and Duration can also be typed into the 1. Clip card in the settings panel. There is no fixed maximum clip length, but each extra second adds as many frames as the FPS value, so keep loops as short as the motion allows.
- Width
- 240px, 320px, 480px (default), 640px, 800px or Original. The height follows the aspect ratio, so a vertical 1080 × 1920 px phone video at 480px becomes about 480 × 853 px. Choosing a width larger than the source enlarges it: the file grows but gains no detail. Original keeps the full resolution with no upper limit, which makes 1080p or 4K sources very large.
- FPS
- 5, 10, 12 (default), 15, 20, 24 or 30 frames per second. The frame count is duration × FPS, so 5 seconds at 12 fps gives 60 frames. 10–15 fps is enough for most short loops; use 24 or 30 fps for fast or smooth motion. A rate above the source video's frame rate only repeats frames: motion gets no smoother, although the repeats add little to the file size. The APNG always loops endlessly and has no audio.
- Compression effort
- A scale from 1 to 9. The badge next to it reads Faster encode (1–3), Balanced (4–6), Smaller file (7–8) or Maximum (9). Higher levels try harder PNG filtering and deflate compression; the pixels never change. In our tests, level 6 files were about 4–13 % smaller than level 1, while level 9 saved at most another 2 % and took roughly two to four times as long as level 6.
Why APNG files get large, with real numbers
APNG stores every frame losslessly, much like a stack of PNG images. A video codec, by contrast, throws away detail you are unlikely to notice. Take the defaults: a 16:9 clip at 480px is 480 × 270 px, or 129,600 pixels per frame. Uncompressed 24-bit color needs about 389 KB per frame, and 60 frames (5 seconds at 12 fps) come to about 23 MB before PNG compression.
Compression helps most when little changes between frames. Each APNG frame only stores the rectangle that differs from the previous one, so a screen recording with a still background and one moving cursor can end up tiny. Footage with constant motion or grain changes almost every pixel: in our test, a 3.5-second clip at the default 480px and 12 fps (42 frames) came out at 2.9 MB.
The size grows with pixels × frames. 800px instead of 480px has about 2.8 times the pixels per frame, and 30 fps instead of 12 fps has 2.5 times the frames; the test clip above grew from 2.9 MB to 7.4 MB at 30 fps. Both changes together mean almost 7 times the data of the default settings. To shrink a result, shorten the clip, lower the FPS or pick a smaller width. Raising compression effort is the smallest lever.
APNG, GIF or animated WebP?
All three loop without sound. They differ in color depth, file size and where they play.
APNG: lossless, full color
Full RGB color with no 256-color palette and no dithering, so gradients, skin tones and screen recordings stay exact. It plays in current versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. Programs without APNG support show only the first frame, because the file is also a valid PNG.
GIF: a 256-color palette
Limited to 256 colors per frame, which causes banding or dither noise in photographic footage. Choose Video to GIF when the target is an older app, email or anywhere support matters more than color.
Animated WebP: lossy compression
Uses lossy compression, so camera footage can be smaller than the same clip as APNG. Video to WebP also offers a quality slider and a loop switch.
Formats and limits
- Input formats
- MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, M4V, MPEG/MPG, OGV
- Output format
- Animated PNG with the
.apngextension, endless loop, no audio - Maximum file size
- 200 MB per video
- Files per job
- 1
- Output size
- 240px to 800px wide, or Original with no maximum; the height follows the aspect ratio
- Clip length
- No fixed limit, but the job must finish within 15 minutes
- Processing
- On our servers with FFmpeg. No external or AI service is involved.
- Watermark
- None
- Storage
- Uploads and results are deleted automatically after 48 hours for guests and after 30 days for free accounts. Paid plans can keep files longer.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my APNG so much bigger than the video?
The video was compressed lossily; the APNG stores every frame without loss. Shorten the clip, drop to 10 or 12 fps and pick a smaller width.
Does converting to APNG reduce quality?
The frames are stored losslessly, and no compression effort level changes the picture. What you see is the source after resizing to your chosen width and sampling at your chosen FPS. Blocking or blur already in the video is kept exactly as it is.
Will the APNG have a transparent background?
Only if the video itself contains transparency that can be decoded, for example ProRes 4444 in a MOV file. ProRes files are large, so export only the seconds you need to stay under 200 MB. Normal MP4 and phone videos are opaque. The tool does not remove backgrounds.
A website rejects my .apng file. What can I do?
Rename the file to .png. An APNG is a standard PNG with extra animation data, so the content does not change. Check afterwards that the site keeps the animation: services that re-process images may keep only the first frame.
Can I turn a GIF or PNG images into an APNG here?
No. This APNG maker accepts video files only. For a GIF you can create an MP4 with GIF to MP4 and convert that here, but any GIF transparency is lost on the way, and the APNG cannot restore colors the GIF palette already removed.
Why did the conversion fail or stop?
Each conversion must finish within 15 minutes. APNG encoding is slow, so long clips at Original size, 30 fps and effort 9 can run out of time. Shorten the clip, choose a smaller width or lower the effort. Files without a video track, such as audio-only MP4s, cannot be converted.