GIF to MP4 converter
GIF is a wasteful way to store motion. The same animation as an MP4 is typically several times lighter and plays almost anywhere.
Quality
Balanced is what most people want: near-identical picture at a fraction of the GIF's weight.
MP4 has no loop flag of its own. Social platforms loop short clips anyway; repeating the animation inside the file covers players that do not, at three times the encoding time.
Pick a file to start.
Why the file shrinks so much
A GIF stores motion like a flipbook: one nearly complete picture per frame, each limited to 256 colours. H.264 inside an MP4 stores the first frame, then only what changes after it, with the full range of colour. On real footage the MP4 commonly ends up several times smaller, sometimes by a factor of ten, and looks better too.
This is also what most social networks do behind the scenes. Post a GIF and it is usually converted to video before anyone sees it. Doing it yourself just means you choose the quality.
What you give up
- The built-in loop. MP4 has no loop flag. Feeds loop short clips anyway; desktop players usually do not. The repeat option writes the animation into the file three times to cover that.
- Transparency. H.264 has no transparent pixels, so those areas turn black.
- Image-only places. Some upload forms, forum editors and email clients accept pictures but not video.
If none of those matter for where the file is going, MP4 is simply the better format.
Questions
Which quality setting should I use?
Balanced suits most uses. High is for footage people will look at closely; Small file is for chat, where nobody does.
Will there be sound?
No. A GIF has no audio, so the MP4 is silent.