Video to GIF with Frame-by-Frame Control

Time Selection Choose which part of the video to convert

Select a video file to convert to GIFConvert MP4, WebM, AVI videos to high-quality animated GIFs. Free online converter with custom size, FPS, and optimization options.

Turn a video clip into a GIF, directly or frame by frame

Turn a selected part of a video into an animated GIF, then edit the extracted frames before exporting. Reorder or remove frames, adjust timing and apply effects to individual images. Start with a short clip and reduce its width or frame rate when the GIF is too large. GIF has no audio; keep the original video if sound is part of the explanation.

Cost: Free to use. File size and usage limits apply.

How to make a GIF from a video

Add one video
Click Select a video file to convert to GIF, drop a file onto the preview, or pick an earlier upload under Uploads. The file needs a video track and can be up to 200 MB.
Choose the part you need
Under Time Selection, drag the Start Time and End Time handles or type the values in seconds. The whole video is selected at first, so trim long videos before you convert.
Set frame rate, width and quality
Pick Frame Rate (FPS), Width and Quality Preset; together they decide most of the file size. Dithering, Optimizations and Crop are optional.
Extract frames if you want to edit them
Click Extract Frames to delete, reorder, retime or color-correct single frames before the GIF is built. The frame rate you picked decides how many frames you get.
Convert and download
Click Convert to GIF!, check the animation in the preview, then click Download GIF; Adjust takes you back to the settings for another try. The GIF is also saved in the shared file manager, so you can open it in other GIF tools such as Compress GIF.

Direct conversion or frame editing?

Which settings apply depends on whether extracted frames exist when you click Convert to GIF!.

Direct conversion (no frames extracted)

The server converts the selected part of the original video at your frame rate. All settings apply, including Crop. Use it for clips longer than 30 seconds or when single frames don't matter.

Frame editing (after Extract Frames)

Uses at most the first 30 seconds of the clip and 900 frames. The GIF is rendered from the original video at each frame's timestamp, so the small thumbnails don't limit quality. Width, Quality Preset, Dithering and Crop apply; Optimizations don't, and Frame Rate only sets the frame count and starting delay. Once the frame strip is empty, the tool switches back to direct conversion.

Settings and when to change them

Time Selection: Start Time, End Time and Duration in seconds, in 0.1-second steps, within the length of the video.
Frame Rate (FPS): 5, 10, 12, 15, 20, 24 or 30 fps; default 10 fps. As a rule of thumb, 10–15 fps suits reactions and screen recordings, while fast motion needs 24–30 fps to look smooth.
Width: Original or 240, 320, 400, 500 or 640 px; default 500 px. The height follows the aspect ratio, so a 1920 × 1080 px video becomes 500 × 281 px. A width above the source width enlarges the frames without adding detail.
Quality Preset: Sets the palette size: Low 64 colors, Medium 128, High 256 (default). Original builds a new palette of up to 256 colors for every frame, which can help when scene colors change. It can increase file size; compare the actual results for your clip.
Dithering: Mixes palette colors into fine patterns to hide banding. Sierra-2 (default) and Floyd-Steinberg give the smoothest gradients, Bayer a regular grid pattern. None shows banding but suits flat graphics and usually gives the smallest file.
Transparency: Under Optimizations. Reserves one palette entry for transparency and redraws only the changed area of each frame. On ordinary footage the file size barely changes and can even grow slightly; it matters for sources with an alpha channel (see the FAQ).
Static Background: Under Optimizations. Drops frames that are almost identical to the previous one and plays the rest back to back, so a two-second pause shrinks to about one frame and the GIF gets shorter. Leave it off when a pause is part of the timing.
Crop: Turn on Enable Crop and enter X, Y, Width and Height as percentages of the video frame (0–100). The area is outlined on the video preview, and the GIF contains only that part of the frame.

Editing extracted frames

After Extract Frames, a frame strip appears under the timeline and an Edit Frame card appears in the settings.

Selecting and ordering: Click to select a frame, Shift-click for a range, and Ctrl-click (Cmd-click on Mac) or tick the checkbox to add single frames. Drag to reorder, or focus a frame and press the Left or Right arrow key. The trash icon deletes a frame. Delete selected frames removes the selection. Add images as frames inserts uploaded images after the active frame.
Edit Frame tabs: The first tab edits the selected frames (Select all selects the strip). Apply effects to all frames edits every frame. Output Settings has a Frame Delay (ms) button that resets all delays to the current frame rate.
Delay (ms): How long a frame stays on screen, 20–5000 ms; each thumbnail has its own delay field too. Frames start at 1000 ÷ FPS, for example 100 ms at 10 fps. GIF stores delays in 10 ms steps, so 33 ms becomes 30 ms and a strip extracted at 30 fps plays about 10 % faster than the video.
Color, blur and filters: Brightness and Contrast range from 0 to 200 %, Saturation up to 300 %; 100 % leaves a frame unchanged. Blur px goes from 0 to 10 px. Filter offers None, Sepia, Grayscale, Vintage, Cold and Warm. The preview shows each effect as you set it, and the GIF is rendered with the same look from the full-size frame.

Why GIFs from video get large

MP4 and similar formats mostly store what changes between frames. GIF compresses each frame on its own, losslessly and with at most 256 colors, so a few seconds of GIF can be larger than the video they came from.

Frame count is Duration × FPS: 6 seconds at 10 fps gives 60 frames, at 30 fps it gives 180. Pixels per frame follow the width: at 500 px a 16:9 frame has about 140,000 pixels, at 320 px about 58,000.

Before a direct conversion runs, the tool rejects settings that would give more than 1,800 frames, a side longer than 8,192 px, or more than 1.2 billion pixels across all frames. At Original width, sources larger than 1920 px on the longer side are limited to 300 frames, and a 4K video reaches the pixel limit after 144 frames, about 14 seconds at 10 fps.

Formats and limits

Input formats: MP4, MOV, WebM, AVI, MKV, MPEG/MPG, OGV, M4V (with a video track)
Output format: Animated GIF that loops forever, without sound
Maximum file size: 200 MB per video
Files per job: 1 video
Clip length: Direct conversion: up to 1,800 frames, for example 180 seconds at 10 fps. Frame editing: the first 30 seconds, up to 900 frames.
Processing: On our servers with FFmpeg, up to 15 minutes per job; no AI or other external service
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 GIF larger than the original video?

GIF has no motion prediction like modern video codecs. File size depends on the images, clip length, frame rate and dimensions. Cut it in this order: trim the clip, pick a smaller Width (half the width means a quarter of the pixels), lower Frame Rate (FPS), then try Medium or Low with Dithering set to None.

What does "GIF output is too large" mean?

The clip exceeds a limit that is checked before processing starts, most often 1,800 frames (Duration × FPS). Because the whole video is selected at first, a 4-minute video at 10 fps asks for 2,400 frames. Trim the clip or lower the FPS. At Original width, large videos reach the pixel limit much sooner (message "Original-size GIF is too large"), so choose 640 px or less.

Can the GIF keep a transparent background?

Only if the video has an alpha channel, such as a ProRes 4444 MOV, and only in a direct conversion with Transparency switched on. GIF transparency is all or nothing per pixel, so soft edges become either fully transparent or solid.

Why does Extract Frames fail or show black thumbnails?

Thumbnails come from the preview player in your browser. If the browser can't open the file, extraction stops with an error; if it can't decode the picture, thumbnails may stay black. The GIF itself is rendered from the original file on the server, and a direct conversion doesn't depend on your browser.

How is this different from the GIF Maker?

The GIF Maker builds an animation from images you upload; this tool starts from a video. To turn a GIF back into a video file, use GIF to MP4. The video can be smaller, depending on the images and settings; compare the resulting file size.

Is my video uploaded to a server?

Yes. FFmpeg converts it on our servers; it is not sent to any AI or other external service. Deletion times are listed under Formats and limits.