MP4 to GIF converter
MP4 is what your phone, your screen recorder and every camera already produce. Drop one in, pick the seconds worth keeping, get a GIF that loops anywhere.
Drop an MP4 or choose a file
MP4 — and MOV, WebM, AVI, MKV too
Preset
Nothing stops you making a minute-long GIF, but weight grows with every second. Three to six is the sweet spot.
Below 10 fps looks choppy, above 20 mostly just adds weight.
Fewer colours means a smaller file. Flat cartoon footage survives 64 easily.
Target size — settings step down automatically until the GIF fits.
Pick a file to start.
Why almost every GIF starts as an MP4
MP4 is the default output of nearly everything that records: phone cameras, screen recorders, game capture, video editors, and most of what you download. Inside it is usually H.264 video, which stores motion by describing what changed between frames — brilliantly efficient, and the exact opposite of how a GIF works.
That difference is the whole job of this page. Going from MP4 to GIF means throwing away that efficiency in exchange for a file that plays itself, loops forever and drops into a chat box, a forum post or an email without a player. You pay for it in size, which is why the settings here matter more than they look.
What to expect from a phone clip
A ten-second 1080p MP4 off a modern phone is maybe 20 MB. The same ten seconds as a full-size GIF would be far larger and unusable. Trimmed to four seconds at 480 pixels wide and 15 frames a second, it lands somewhere around 2–4 MB depending on how much movement there is — which is the range chat apps and forums actually accept.
Two things drive that number more than anything else: how many seconds you keep, and how much of the frame is moving. A talking head on a still background compresses far better than a handheld pan across a street.
Screen recordings are the easy case
Screen captures convert beautifully. Flat interface colours, no grain, no camera noise — exactly what a 256-colour palette handles well. Drop the colour count to 64 for a UI recording and you will usually see no difference at all while the file gets noticeably lighter.
MOV, WebM and the rest
This page is tuned for MP4, but the converter takes MOV straight off an iPhone, WebM from a browser recording, plus AVI, MKV, M4V and the other usual suspects. If you work with those more often, the general video to GIF converter says the same things without the MP4 slant.
Going the other way — a heavy GIF you want to make small again — is GIF to MP4, and it typically cuts the weight by about ninety per cent.
Questions
Is my MP4 uploaded anywhere?
No. The converter is FFmpeg compiled to WebAssembly, running inside this tab. Your file is read from disk into the tab's memory and the GIF comes back to you. Nothing is sent to a server, so there is no copy of your video to store, leak or delete.
How big an MP4 can I convert?
There is no limit on our side — no 200 MB ceiling, no frame cap, no duration cap. The practical limit is your browser's memory, roughly 2 GB. A long 4K file can hit it; trimming first keeps you well clear.
Does the audio survive?
No, and it cannot. GIF has no sound track at all. If the audio matters, keep the MP4 or use GIF to MP4 for the other direction.
Why does my GIF look grainier than the video?
A GIF carries at most 256 colours per frame against millions in the MP4. Gradients, skies and dark scenes show that first, as banding. Raising the colour count to 256 helps; cropping to the part that matters helps more.
Can it do a whole video at once?
It can, but you almost certainly do not want it to. Past ten seconds the file grows beyond what most places accept. Trim to the moment worth sharing — that is what the two handles are for.