How to Convert a Video to GIF

In your browser

1. Open Video to GIF and drop in the video. It appears in a player.
2. Play it and pause where the GIF should start; the start time fills in. Set the length in seconds.
3. Choose a width and frame rate, click Make GIF, check the preview and download it.

The conversion runs on your computer with FFmpeg; the first use downloads the converter (about 30 MB).

Keeping the GIF small

• Length matters most: every second adds frames. Keep it to a few seconds.
• Width: 480 px suits chats and most websites.
• Frame rate: 10–12 fps looks smooth enough for most clips and is much smaller than 24 fps.

A GIF is always far larger than the same clip as MP4, because GIF has no real video compression. If the place you are posting accepts video, a short MP4 looks better and loads faster.

With FFmpeg

This makes a 480-pixel-wide GIF at 12 fps with its own color palette:

ffmpeg -ss 5 -t 4 -i video.mp4 -vf "fps=12,scale=480:-2:flags=lanczos,split[a][b];[a]palettegen[p];[b][p]paletteuse" clip.gif