MP4 to GIF Converter
Drop an MP4, get a looping GIF. Runs in your browser — no upload, no signup.
Drop your MP4 file here
Converts to .gif — stays on your device
Why convert MP4 to GIF?
- Turning a short product demo clip into a GIF for a GitHub README, where MP4 won't inline but GIF will autoplay.
- Making a bug-reproduction loop for a Jira or Linear ticket where video attachments are awkward but an inline GIF tells the story.
- Creating an animated preview for a Notion doc or Confluence page that doesn't support inline video playback.
- Posting a quick demo to Slack or Discord as an inline animation instead of a downloadable video attachment.
- Dropping a feature tour GIF into a ProductHunt launch, a Medium post, or a Dev.to article where writers default to GIF.
- Building a product-onboarding email in Mailchimp or Customer.io where animated GIFs render but embedded MP4 often doesn't.
How our converter works
Your MP4 is decoded by a WebAssembly ffmpeg build in your browser, downscaled to 480 px wide at 15 fps (sensible defaults for web embedding), and re-encoded as a looping GIF. Because GIF caps at 256 colors per frame and stores data much less efficiently than H.264, the output is dramatically larger than the source MP4 — that's the tradeoff for GIF's universal inline-playback support. Everything runs locally; the video never leaves your browser tab.
MP4 vs GIF — what's the difference?
| Feature | MP4 | GIF |
|---|---|---|
| Typical file size | A few MB for a minute | 5–20× larger than the source MP4 |
| Audio | Yes | No — GIF is silent |
| Colors | Full 24-bit | Limited to 256 per frame |
| Inline playback | Requires <video> tag | Plays everywhere <img> works |
| Best for | Watching, streaming, high quality | READMEs, tickets, chat, email |
Frequently asked questions
What frame rate and size does the GIF use?
15 fps at 480 pixels wide, with height scaled proportionally. This hits the sweet spot for readable motion at tolerable file size — higher fps or larger dimensions make GIFs balloon fast.
Why is the GIF so much bigger than the MP4?
GIF compression is three decades old and only stores 256 colors per frame with no inter-frame compression. A 2 MB MP4 commonly becomes a 15 MB GIF. That's the cost of universal inline playback — use MP4 whenever the target actually supports it.
Will the GIF loop automatically?
Yes. The output is encoded with infinite looping, which is what every platform — GitHub, Slack, email clients, documentation sites — expects from an animated GIF.
Can I trim or crop the video first?
Not yet from this tool. Trim in a desktop editor (iMovie, DaVinci Resolve, Premiere) first, export the trimmed MP4, then convert here. Shorter input = much smaller GIF.
Is there a length limit?
Not hard-coded, but practical. A 10-second clip makes a manageable 2–5 MB GIF. Anything over 30 seconds produces a huge GIF — usually better served as MP4 even if it means extra embedding work.
Are my videos uploaded?
No. Conversion runs entirely in your browser via WebAssembly. Videos never leave your device — which matters for unreleased product demos, NDA-bound reproductions, and confidential bug captures.
About the MP4 format
MP4 is the modern video container — H.264 or H.265 compression, small files, universal playback. GIF is a 1987 image format that gained a second life in the 2010s as the web's de facto 'inline silent video' because it works everywhere an `<img>` tag does: GitHub READMEs, email, issue trackers, chat apps, CMSes that block <video>. The conversion is useful specifically in those places. Everywhere else — marketing pages, documentation, social feeds — keep the MP4 and use `<video autoplay muted loop playsinline>`, which gives you 10–20× better compression and full-color fidelity.