MP4 to GIF Converter

Turn an MP4 clip into a crisp animated GIF — choose the frame rate and width. Runs entirely in your browser; your video never leaves your device.

By LK Forge · Published 6 August 2026 ·

Drop your file here, or click to choose Processed privately in your browser — nothing is uploaded

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100% private. Your file is processed in your browser with ffmpeg (WebAssembly) and is never uploaded. Big or long files take longer and use more memory — for those, trim first.

What does converting MP4 to GIF actually do?

MP4 to GIF conversion re-renders an H.264 video into an animated GIF, an image format from 1987 that stores every frame as an indexed bitmap capped at 256 colours per palette. That palette limit is why GIFs show colour banding, and the lack of interframe compression is why the same clip is usually several times larger as a GIF than as the MP4 it came from. This converter runs a two-pass ffmpeg chain: the first pass analyses the clip and builds an optimised palette with palettegen=stats_mode=diff, and the second maps every frame onto it with paletteuse=dither=bayer, which is visibly cleaner than a single-pass export. You choose the frame rate (8, 10, 12, 15 or 20 fps) and the output width (320, 480, 640 or 800 px); height scales proportionally. The default, 12 fps at 480 px, suits most screen recordings. The whole conversion runs locally through ffmpeg.wasm, so your MP4 is never uploaded; the engine itself downloads once per session, on your first conversion.

How to Use the MP4 to GIF Converter

Three steps, all in your browser.

  1. Load your MP4

    Drag an MP4 onto the box or click to pick one. Short clips make the best GIFs — a few seconds is ideal.

  2. Choose frame rate & width

    Higher frame rate is smoother but larger; a smaller width keeps the file light. 12 fps at 480 px is a good default.

  3. Make GIF & download

    Click Convert. The GIF is built with a two-pass colour palette for clean quality, then you can preview and download it.

How big will my GIF be, and which frame rate and width should I pick?

GIF has no motion compression, so size scales with pixels × frames. These two controls are the only levers that matter.

Every frame of a GIF is stored as its own LZW-compressed image drawn from a palette of at most 256 colours. Nothing in the format can say “this block moved four pixels left”, so a GIF’s weight scales almost linearly with width × height × frame count. The table below is the raw pixel budget for a five-second 16:9 clip at each setting offered on this page, indexed against the 480 px / 12 fps default.

SizeFrame rateFrames in 5sPixel budgetvs defaultBest for
320×18010 fps502.88 M0.37×Chat and Slack reactions
320×18015 fps754.32 M0.56×Smooth motion at small size
480×27010 fps506.48 M0.83×Forum and issue-tracker posts
480×27012 fps607.78 M1.00×The default — start here
480×27020 fps10012.96 M1.67×Fast motion in a small frame
640×36012 fps6013.82 M1.78×README and documentation embeds
800×45012 fps6021.60 M2.78×Presentation size; expect a heavy file
800×45020 fps10036.00 M4.63×Avoid unless the clip is about a second

Two things this converter does that a naive export does not. It builds the palette with palettegen=stats_mode=diff, so the 256 colours are chosen from the pixels that actually change between frames rather than from the static background — moving subjects keep their colour instead of being crushed into the backdrop. And it applies an ordered Bayer dither rather than error diffusion: the Bayer cross-hatch stays in the same place frame to frame, so LZW finds far more repeats and the file lands smaller, at the cost of a faint texture on smooth gradients.

Practical rule: halve the frame rate before you halve the width. Dropping 20 fps to 10 fps costs motion smoothness you rarely notice in a three-second loop; dropping 640 px to 320 px visibly softens text and faces. If the clip is longer than about ten seconds, trim it first with the Video Trimmer — length costs more than either setting.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I convert an MP4 to a GIF?
Load your MP4 into the box, pick a frame rate and width, and click Convert. The tool renders the clip to an animated GIF right in your browser using a two-pass colour-palette method, which keeps colours accurate and the file smaller than a naive export. When it finishes you can preview the GIF and download it.
Is my video uploaded to a server?
No — your MP4 never leaves your device. The whole conversion runs with WebAssembly (ffmpeg compiled for the browser). Your file is read locally and is never uploaded, logged or stored, so you can safely convert private clips. The video engine (about 10 MB) downloads the first time you convert in a session; after that, no further network requests are made. Closing the tab clears everything.
Why is my GIF large, and how do I shrink it?
GIF is an old format with a 256-colour limit, so animated GIFs are always heavier than the source MP4. To reduce the size, lower the frame rate (try 10–12 fps), pick a smaller width (320–480 px), and keep the clip short. Those three settings have by far the biggest effect on the final file size.
Is there a length or file-size limit?
We impose no cap, but the browser does: the video engine is 32-bit WebAssembly and holds the input and the output in memory at once, so files much over about 1 GB can run out of memory. Because the conversion happens in your browser, very long or high-resolution clips use a lot of memory and take longer. For smooth results, trim to the moment you want first — you can use our Video Trimmer — and keep GIFs to a handful of seconds.
Does it add a watermark?
No — the GIF carries no watermark. It contains only your video, at the frame rate and size you chose. There is no watermark, no sign-up and no cost.

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