GIF Maker – Make GIFs from Photos & Clips, Free & Instant

How to make a GIF

Add your sources, set the shape and speed, watch the looping preview, then export.

1Add photos, clips or a GIF: Drop in JPG, PNG, WebP or AVIF stills, MP4, WebM or MOV clips, or an existing animated GIF whose frames you want to reuse.
2Trim each clip: Every video source gets its own in and out point, so only the seconds you want become frames.
3Order and time the sequence: Move sources up or down, set the frame rate, and pick the output shape every frame is fitted into.
4Watch the preview: The preview plays the exact frames that will be exported, at the exact delays, so timing is checked before the encode rather than after it.
5Export: Download the .gif, or take every frame away as PNG files in a single archive.

Why build a GIF rather than post a video

A GIF plays anywhere an image plays: in a chat window, in a pull request comment, in an email, in documentation that cannot embed a player. It loops without a click and needs no controls. That reach is the reason to accept its limits — 256 colours a frame and no sound.

What this maker gives you

Mixed sources: photos, trimmed video clips and an existing animated GIF can all feed the same animation, in whatever order you arrange them.
Real trimming: each clip carries its own in and out point, so a three-second moment out of a two-minute recording costs three seconds of frames.
Timing you can see: the preview plays the frames that will be exported, at the delays that will be written.
Smaller files: frames store only the pixels that changed since the frame before, which is where most of a GIF's weight normally goes.
Nothing leaves the device: the files are read, decoded and encoded where they already are.

How GIF encoding works

A GIF is a palette format: each frame is reduced to at most 256 colours drawn from one table, and those palette indices are then compressed. Everything that makes a GIF look good or bad happens in that reduction.

The pipeline, step by step

Sampling: clips are decoded once, forward, and frames are taken at your frame rate between the in and out points.
Fitting: every frame is drawn into one output — letterboxed, cropped or stretched, whichever you chose.
Palette: colours are counted across frames sampled through the whole animation, not just the first frame, so a colour that arrives late is still represented.
Mapping: each pixel takes the nearest palette entry, hardware accelerated where the device allows it.
Differencing: a frame stores its changed region only, and marks unchanged pixels as see-through so the frame beneath shows.
Packing: the indices are compressed and written with their delays and loop count into one .gif.

Controlling file size

GIF weight is driven by pixels × frames × colour complexity, in that order. Halving the width quarters the pixel count; halving the frame rate halves the frames. Both do far more than any quality slider.

Output size: the strongest lever by a wide margin. 480px wide is plenty for a chat window.
Frame rate: 8–12 fps reads as smooth for screen recordings and product loops. Above 15 fps you are paying for motion most viewers will not notice.
Colours: flat graphics, screenshots and UI recordings often look identical at 64 colours and weigh a fraction of a 256-colour version.
Trim: shorter is smaller, exactly proportionally. Cutting two seconds saves more than any other setting on this page.
Similarity tolerance: lets almost-identical pixels count as unchanged, so noisy video compresses like clean video.

Turning a video clip into a GIF

Clips are decoded in a single forward pass rather than by seeking to each frame in turn, which is why a long source costs roughly what a short one does per frame instead of many times more.

Trim first, then set the frame rate: the frame budget is spread across the window you kept, so a tighter trim buys smoother motion at no extra size.
Portrait clips: pick the 9:16 output so the frame is filled rather than letterboxed into a landscape box.
Screen recordings: few colours and large unchanged areas — lower the colour count and let differencing do the rest.
Sound: GIF has none. If the audio matters, the clip should stay a video.

Controls, and what each one does

Everything in the settings rail changes the exported bytes, and changing any of them marks a finished GIF as out of date rather than leaving it looking current.

Output shape: square, landscape, portrait, classic, or follow the sources.
Scale to frame: fit with gutters, fill and crop, or stretch to the box.
Letterbox fill: what fills the gutters — white, black, a colour of your choosing, or see-through.
Dithering: off for flat graphics, ordered for a fast even texture, diffused for the smoothest gradients.
Loop count: forever, or a fixed number of plays.
Crossfade: a dissolve between one source and the next, for slideshows.
Captions: a line of text burned into a source's frames, positioned as a share of the output so it holds its place at any export size.

When a GIF is the right answer

Short, silent, looping and embedded somewhere a video player is awkward or unavailable.

Good uses

Bug reports: a five-second screen recording that plays inline in the issue.
Documentation: showing a click path without hosting a video.
Chat and email: reactions and product loops that autoplay everywhere.
Stores and listings: a short rotation or before-and-after in an image slot.
Slideshows: a handful of photos with a crossfade between them.

When to use something else

Anything with sound — a GIF cannot carry audio.
Long or high-definition footage — MP4 or WebM will be smaller and sharper.
Photographic gradients where banding must not show — 256 colours is the format's ceiling, not a setting.
Exact colour reproduction — a still PNG keeps every colour a GIF has to discard.

Getting a good result first time

Set the size and the trim before anything else; they decide most of the outcome. Then adjust the frame rate until the motion reads correctly, and only then touch colours and dithering.

Start at 480–640px wide and go smaller if the file is still heavy.
Try 10 fps first; raise it only if the motion visibly stutters.
Drop the colour count on screenshots and flat graphics before touching anything else.
Watch a full loop in the preview — timing problems show up at the seam between the last frame and the first.
For a slideshow, give each photo a slower delay than a video clip would use.

Palette mapping runs on your device's graphics hardware where it is available, and falls back to a slower path that produces exactly the same pixels where it is not.

GIF maker questions

Can I use just part of a video instead of the whole clip?

Yes. Every video source has its own in and out point in the source list, in seconds. Only frames between those two points are sampled, so a three-second moment from a long recording costs three seconds of frames and nothing more. On the free plan each clip contributes up to 15 seconds; Pro uses the full clip.

What frame rate should I choose?

10 fps is the right starting point for most things — smooth enough for screen recordings, product loops and slideshows, while keeping the frame count sensible. Raise it towards 15 only when the motion is fast enough that stutter is visible, and remember every extra frame is added weight.

Why does my GIF show banding or look posterised?

GIF stores at most 256 colours per frame, so smooth gradients and photographic detail have to be approximated. Turn dithering on to break the transition up: ordered dithering is fast and even, diffused dithering is smoother and slower. Raising the colour count in the advanced settings helps too, at the cost of size.

How do I make the file smaller?

In order of effect: reduce the output size, trim the clip shorter, lower the frame rate, then reduce the colour count. Frames already store only the region that changed since the previous frame, so a static background costs almost nothing. With Pro, the similarity tolerance lets near-identical pixels count as unchanged, which shrinks noisy video considerably.

Can I make a GIF from photos rather than video?

Yes — add the photos in the order you want them, and each becomes one frame. Set a slower frame rate so each photo holds long enough to be read, and with Pro add a crossfade so one photo dissolves into the next instead of cutting.

Can I edit a GIF I already have?

Add it as a source and its frames are read in with their original timing, so you can reorder it against other sources, re-time it, resize it or re-loop it. You can also export every frame as a PNG in a single archive if you would rather work on the frames somewhere else.

Does the GIF loop forever?

By default, yes. The loop count control on Pro sets a fixed number of plays instead, which is useful when an animation is meant to end on its last frame rather than snap back to the first.

Can I make a portrait GIF for Stories, Reels or TikTok?

Pick the 9:16 canvas shape and every source is fitted into a vertical frame. Choose fill-and-crop if you would rather the frame be filled edge to edge than letterboxed with gutters.