How to use the Video to GIF tool
- Choose your video.
- Adjust the options.
- Press the action button and wait for the progress bar.
- Preview the result and download it.
About this tool
GIFs are silent looping animations that work in chats, emails and documents where video does not. This tool picks frames from your video at the frame rate you choose, reduces them to a 256-color palette that is optimized for your clip, and skips unchanged pixels between frames to keep the file small.
GIF is an old, inefficient format, so keep clips short. At 480 pixels wide and 10 frames per second, a 5-second clip is typically a few MB. Longer clips are much smaller as MP4 or WebM.
Why use ToolsCrow for this
- Custom palette. Colors are chosen from your clip, not a generic set.
- Frame differencing. Only changed pixels are stored, so motion clips shrink.
- Control the size. Width from 240 to 800 px, frame rate from 5 to 20 fps.
- Private. No upload.
Good to know
- GIFs have only 256 colors, so gradients and photographic scenes can look banded. Tick "Smoother gradients" for dithering at the cost of a larger file.
Frequently asked questions
Is my video uploaded to a server?
No. Everything runs inside your browser tab using your own device's video hardware. Your file is never sent to ToolsCrow or anyone else, which also means there is no waiting for an upload and it keeps working if your connection drops after the page has loaded.
Is it really free? Is there a watermark?
It is free with no sign-up, no watermark and no daily limits. The only limits are the ones your device sets: memory and processing power.
How large a video can I use?
Because the video is processed on your device, the limit is your device's memory rather than a server quota. Phone clips of several hundred MB are fine on most devices, and desktop computers usually handle 1 to 2 GB. Files over about 4 GB are not supported.
Which browsers work best?
Current Chrome, Edge and Safari (16.4 or newer, including iPhone and iPad) work best because they include the WebCodecs video engine. Recent Firefox versions work for many files. Older browsers fall back to a much slower real-time mode or may not work at all.
How do I make the GIF smaller?
Shorten the clip, lower the width (320 px is plenty for chat), and drop the frame rate to 8 to 10 fps. Leave dithering off.
Why is my GIF bigger than my video?
GIF is far less efficient than modern video codecs. A 5 MB GIF is often a 300 KB MP4. Where you can, use MP4 or WebM instead.
Related video tools
- Extract Frames from VideoTurn a video into a folder of still images.
- Video Screenshot GeneratorFind the exact frame you want and save it as a full-resolution image.
- Video TrimmerKeep just the part you need.
- Change Video SpeedMake a video faster or slower, anywhere from 0.25× to 8×.
- Video ResizerScale a video down to 1080p, 720p, 480p or 360p and keep the proportions.
- Video CompressorShrink any video to a fraction of its size while keeping it sharp, or type the exact size you need in MB.
More in gifs and images (4 tools), or browse all video tools..