video to GIF
Made in this tab, and honest about how big a GIF gets.
Up to 120 MB. Ten frames a second at 480 px wide. A GIF of a long clip is enormous.
Checking whether the video and audio converter is already on this device
0%The short answer
Ten frames a second at 480 pixels wide, which is the compromise that keeps a GIF usable. A GIF stores every frame as its own palettised image with no motion compression at all, so five seconds of video can outweigh the video it came from several times over.
Ten frames a second at 480 pixels wide. Keep the clip to a few seconds: a GIF has no motion compression at all, so a long one can outweigh the video several times over.
The formula
ffmpeg -i video -vf fps=10,scale=480:-1:flags=lanczos -loop 0 out.gif
Worked examples
- A 3-second clip
- usually 1–3 MB
- A 15-second clip
- often over 10 MB
- Anything with a moving camera
- much larger again
Reference table
| Format | Compresses motion | Colours | 5 seconds is roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| MP4 (H.264) | Yes | 16.7 million | 300 kB |
| Animated WebP | Yes | 16.7 million | 400 kB |
| GIF | No | 256 per frame | 2–4 MB |
| APNG | No | 16.7 million | 5 MB and up |
How to use it
- 01Let the converter loadThe 32 MB engine downloads in the background and is kept afterwards.
- 02Drop a short clip inThree to five seconds. Anything longer produces a file too big to share.
- 03Save the GIFThe size is shown before you commit to it.
Also searched for
Searches that land here include video to gif, mp4 to gif, make a gif from video, convert video to gif and gif maker.
GIF, and its cost
No motion compression
Every video codec since the early nineties stores the difference between frames. GIF, designed in 1987 for still pictures, stores each frame whole, palettised to 256 colours. That is the entire reason a GIF of a few seconds can be larger than the minute-long video it was cut from, and no encoder setting can fix it.
What the settings do
Frame rate and width both multiply the total directly: halving the frame rate halves the file, and halving the width quarters it. Ten frames a second at 480 pixels is the point where a GIF still reads as motion and remains small enough to send. Dithering, which is how 256 colours pretend to be more, adds noise that compresses badly, which is why gradients and film grain are so expensive here.
The alternatives, when you have a choice
A silent, looping, auto-playing MP4 or WebP does everything a GIF does at a fraction of the size, and every current browser plays both. If the destination accepts either, use them. If it insists on a GIF, keep the clip short.
Questions people ask
Why is the GIF bigger than the video?
Because a GIF stores each frame as a separate image and has no way to say “this frame is mostly the same as the last one”. Video codecs do almost nothing else. That single difference is why five seconds of video is a few hundred kilobytes as an MP4 and several megabytes as a GIF.
Should I be using a GIF at all?
Often not. Every browser has played silent looping MP4 and WebP for years, and both are a fraction of the size at better quality. GIF survives because chat apps, email clients and some CMSes still only accept it — which is exactly when this page is the right tool.
Why ten frames a second, and 480 pixels?
Because the file size scales with both, and a GIF is already the least efficient format in common use. Ten frames reads as motion without paying for twenty-five. 480 pixels wide is enough for a chat window. Higher settings are possible and produce files nobody can send.