GIF Compressor
Make animated GIFs smaller by scaling them down, dropping frames and reducing colours — re-encoded in your browser, nothing uploaded.
The compressed GIF will appear here
How to Compress a GIF in 3 Steps
Drop a GIF
Drag an animated GIF onto the left pane. Frame count, dimensions and size appear in the header; the original keeps playing so you can compare.
Choose How to Shrink
Scale is the biggest lever (50% ≈ a quarter of the pixels). Drop frames to halve the data while keeping the same playback speed, or reduce colours for flat artwork.
Compress & Download
Click Compress, watch the progress bar, then compare the new size and saved percentage in the toolbar. Download when happy.
What Shrinks a GIF the Most?
| Setting | Typical saving | Visible cost |
|---|---|---|
| Scale 50% | −70 to −75% | Half the width and height; fine for chat and web where GIFs display small anyway |
| Drop every 2nd frame | −45 to −50% | Slightly choppier motion; timing is preserved so the loop takes the same time |
| 128 colours | −10 to −30% | Banding in gradients and photos; invisible on screen-recordings and flat art |
| All three combined | −90% or more | A 10 MB screen capture becomes about 1 MB |
GIF Compressor — Frequently Asked Questions
Why are GIFs so big in the first place?
GIF is a 1989 format: every frame is a full indexed-colour bitmap with no inter-frame video compression. A 10-second 800 px capture can easily exceed 20 MB. Modern alternatives (MP4, WebM, WebP) are 10–20× smaller — our GIF to Video tool does that conversion.
Does dropping frames change the playback speed?
No. When frames are removed the remaining frames are re-timed so the total loop duration stays the same — only the motion gets slightly less smooth.
Why did the file get bigger?
A GIF that was already heavily optimised (frame differencing, tiny palette) can grow when re-encoded with full frames. The tool compares sizes and keeps the original if compression would not help — the badge tells you.
Is the GIF uploaded anywhere?
No. Frames are decoded with the browser's native image decoder and re-encoded by a JavaScript GIF encoder running in web workers on your device.
What is the maximum GIF size?
Up to 50 MB per file. Very long GIFs (over 1,000 frames) are memory-heavy on phones; drop frames or use a desktop browser for those.