MP4 to GIF Converter
Cut a short clip into a looping GIF for chat or a README.
Up to 50 MB per file. Sign up free to convert files up to 100 MB.
| File name | Size | Convert to |
|---|
Checking files and selected output formats.
What to expect when converting MP4 to GIF
A 1 MB short MP4 clip typically becomes 5 – 20 MB as GIF.
Quality: GIF is limited to 256 colors per frame, gradients and detail are severely posterized. Frame rate typically reduced to 10–15 fps.
Best for: short, low-color animations for messaging apps, Slack, Reddit, Discord.
Avoid when: the source has fine color detail or runs longer than 5 seconds, modern platforms auto-convert anyway.
Tip: Keep clips under 5 seconds and 480px wide for a manageable GIF size.
MP4 to GIF - A short clip as an animated preview
A GIF loops anywhere without a player, which is why product demos in blog posts, Slack reactions, documentation screenshots and tutorial previews still use them. Keep the source under 5 seconds, because the file size climbs fast. Past about 3 seconds there are better options, a WebP, or a short autoplaying MP4, since GIF is stuck with 256 colours and still produces a bigger file than MP4 at the same visual quality.
MP4 to GIF: video clip to shareable animation
Converting MP4 to GIF extracts frames from the H.264 video stream, reduces each frame's colors to a maximum of 256 using median-cut or octree quantization, applies Floyd-Steinberg dithering to simulate missing colors, and encodes the frame sequence with LZW compression. The result is dramatically larger than the source, a 1 MB MP4 clip often becomes a 10-30 MB GIF because GIF lacks inter-frame compression and has severe color limitations.
Convert short MP4 clips (under 10 seconds) to GIF for inline display in contexts that don't support video, GitHub READMEs, forum posts, Slack messages, and email. Keep the resolution small (480px or less) and the duration short to avoid enormous files. For longer content, use MP4 with autoplay attributes instead.
MP4 vs GIF: Side-by-side
Technical comparison of the two formats, useful for deciding which to use, or for confirming what changes during conversion.
| Property | MP4 | GIF |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | MPEG-4 Part 14 | Graphics Interchange Format |
| Year introduced | 2001 | 1987 |
| Developer / standard body | MPEG | CompuServe |
| MIME type | video/mp4 | image/gif |
| File extension | .mp4 / .m4v | .gif |
| Compression | H.264 or H.265 codec | Lossless (LZW) |
| Color / data depth | 8/10-bit | 8-bit indexed (256 colors) |
| Max dimensions / size | Codec-dependent (up to 8K) | 65,535 × 65,535 px |
| Transparency | No | Yes |
| Animation | No | Yes |
| Standard / specification | ISO/IEC 14496-14 | GIF89a (CompuServe) |
| Best for | Universal video compatibility, plays on every device | Short animations, simple graphics with limited colors |