A GIF is still one of the simplest ways to show something moving: a product from every side, the steps of a recipe, a sketch taking shape, a few holiday photos that play on their own. It plays almost anywhere a picture can go, with no play button needed. This page turns your pictures to GIF in a few steps.
Add the pictures, drag them into order, set how long each one shows, and the preview plays the GIF as it will look. It is a GIF creator that runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, and it is free with no watermark. Below you will find each setting, what it changes, and how to keep the file small.
How to make a GIF from pictures
Turning pictures to GIF takes five steps. Nothing is built until you press Make GIF, so you can change any setting on the way.
- Press Select images and choose two or more pictures, or drop them on the page. JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, GIF, BMP, TIFF, ICO and iPhone HEIC photos all open.
- The pictures line up as cards under the stage, one card for each frame. Drag them into the order they should play, or click a card and press Alt with the left or right arrow key.
- Set the Time per frame, and choose under Repeat whether the GIF plays Forever, Once or 3 times.
- Pick the Width, and what happens When shapes differ.
- Press Make GIF, then save the file.
The GIF is named after the first picture in the order, with _animated on the end: kitchen.jpg first gives kitchen_animated.gif. You can use up to 100 pictures in one run, and you need at least two. Add pictures brings in more at any time, and each card has a button to remove that picture.
Time per frame and repeat
Time per frame is how long each picture stays on screen, from 0.1 to 3 seconds in steps of 0.05. Every picture gets the same time. The chips under the slider jump to common values, and the preview on the stage changes speed as you move it.
| Chip | How it feels | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| 0.1 s | Fast and smooth, ten pictures a second | Many frames of one movement, such as a short burst of photos |
| 0.25 s | Quick, each picture clearly seen | A product turning, a sketch building up |
| 0.5 s | Steady, the starting value | Most sets of photos |
| 1 s | Slow enough to read | Steps of a guide, screenshots with text |
| 2 s | A slide show | Before and after, photos to look at one by one |
A GIF stores each frame's time in hundredths of a second, so 0.25 s is saved as exactly 25 hundredths and the GIF frame delay you pick is the one you get. Repeat decides how often it plays. Forever loops it without end, which is what most people expect from a GIF. Once plays it a single time and stops on the last picture, and 3 times plays it three times.
Width, shape and background
Width sets how wide the GIF is: 320, 480, 640 or 800 pixels, with 480 to start. Original keeps the first picture's own width, and it is offered only while no picture is wider than 1,200 pixels, because a wider GIF gets very large. The height follows from the shape of the first picture.
- The GIF takes the first picture's shape. If the others are the same shape, there is nothing more to decide.
- When shapes differ, Fit inside keeps each picture whole and fills the space around it with the Background: White, Ink, Black, or any colour with the last swatch.
- Fill and crop fills the whole frame instead, cutting the edges off pictures of another shape. There is no Background to pick, because nothing shows around them.
So when you make a GIF from images of different shapes, put the one with the shape you want first. If your photos mix upright and wide shots, Fit inside shows every one whole, and Fill and crop gives a steady frame with no bands. The preview shows each frame exactly as it will be drawn, so you can compare both before you make the GIF.
This GIF has no see-through areas. Transparent parts of a PNG are filled in, and with Fit inside they take the Background colour, so pick one that suits the page where the GIF will sit. To keep a PNG's see-through background in a still GIF instead, convert PNG to GIF.
Keeping the GIF small
GIF files grow fast, because every frame is stored as a full picture with at most 256 colours. The panel shows the size and an estimate of the file size before you start, and if the GIF may go over 15 MB it says so: This GIF may be over 15 MB. A smaller width or fewer pictures helps.
- Pick a smaller Width. Halving the width makes each frame a quarter of the pixels.
- Use fewer pictures. Every extra frame adds to the file.
- Leave One palette for all frames on. All frames share one set of 256 colours, which gives steadier colours and a smaller file.
- Switch it off only when the pictures have very different colours, so each frame gets its own palette.
A GIF suits drawings, screenshots and flat colours best. When you turn photos to GIF, smooth skies or skin can show bands of colour, because 256 colours are not many. For moving footage rather than still pictures, Video to GIF makes a GIF straight from a clip. To shrink large photos before you start, Resize image handles up to 100 at once.
Preview, privacy and limits
The stage plays your GIF with the timing and the Repeat you chose. The toolbar under it has play and pause, a button for the previous and the next frame, and a line such as Frame 3 of 12. Space plays and pauses. If your device is set to reduce motion, the preview does not start by itself, and you press play when you want it.
- The GIF is made inside your browser. Your pictures are never uploaded, and our server does no picture work.
- It is free, with no account and no watermark. Image tools are not counted in the free daily limit, which applies to document conversions only.
- It works in current Chrome, Edge and Firefox. Very large pictures may be too big for your browser.
To go the other way and take a GIF apart, use GIF to frames. For a GIF with a different caption on each frame, run each picture through the meme generator first, then select the saved memes here. How files are handled is on the privacy page.
Make your GIF now
To turn pictures to GIF, add them, drag them into order, set the Time per frame, the Repeat and the Width, and press Make GIF. The preview shows the result before you save it.
This animated GIF maker is free, private and runs in your browser. Select your pictures above to start.
