How to compress a GIF
- Drop your GIF into the box or choose it.
- Turn on Lossy, or lower the colours, the width or the number of frames. The result and its size update each time.
- Compare before and after in the preview, then download the smaller GIF.
Why GIFs are so big
GIF is a format from 1987. Each frame can only hold 256 colours and compression barely helps with photographic content, so a few seconds of video saved as GIF easily reaches 5 to 20 MB. Reducing width, colours and frame count are the three levers that matter, and they can usually bring a GIF down by 50 to 80% while it still looks fine in a chat.
What happens to each frame
The animation is kept frame for frame with the same timing. Every frame after the first only stores the area that changed, and frames that don’t change at all are merged into one longer frame. All frames share one colour palette, which saves space and avoids colours flickering between frames.
Transparent GIFs
Transparent areas are kept. If the edges look rough after compressing, keep more colours: transparency in GIF is all or nothing, so soft edges depend on the colours around them.