Video & Audio
Video to GIF
Turn a few seconds of video into a shareable GIF or looping clip.
The reaction clip, the three seconds that prove the bug happened, the loop worth sending without anyone having to press play — that is what a GIF is for, and it does not need a server to make one.
This samples frames from the section of video you choose, builds a shared colour palette across all of them, and writes a genuine GIF89a file — the actual animated GIF format, not a disguised video. Because GIF only supports 256 colours per frame, a busy or richly-coloured clip will show some banding compared to the source; that trade-off is what makes the format small enough to share.
How to use it
- Choose a video file.
- Set the Start time and the Length — up to 10 seconds at a time keeps the file a sensible size.
- Pick a frame rate and width. Lower frame rates and smaller widths make a noticeably smaller file.
- Press Create GIF. It samples each frame, builds a palette, then compresses — the last step can take a few seconds for a longer or wider clip.
- Preview it, then press Download.
Questions
Why does the GIF look less colourful than the video?
The GIF format allows at most 256 colours in total, chosen here by sampling the actual frames and picking the best-fitting palette (a technique called median-cut quantisation). Video has millions of colours, so some compression artefacts — banding in smooth gradients especially — are an inherent trade-off of the format, not a bug.
Why is 10 seconds the maximum length?
A GIF stores every frame's pixels (compressed, but uncompressed relative to video), so length, frame rate and width all multiply directly into file size. Ten seconds at a modest size keeps the output shareable rather than enormous.
Does the GIF loop automatically?
Yes, if you leave Loop forever ticked — that is written into the file using the standard Netscape looping extension that every GIF viewer honours.