PNG to GIF

animated GIF89a · shared palette · Floyd–Steinberg dither · nothing uploaded

Build an animated GIF from a folder of frames without installing anything or handing your images to a server. The encoder runs in this page: it samples every frame to build one shared palette, quantises with optional error-diffusion dithering, and writes a standard looping GIF89a that plays anywhere.

How to make a GIF from PNG frames

1. Drop the frames. Zero-padded names like frame-001.png sort correctly; otherwise drag the rows into order.
2. Set the frame rate. 10 fps is the usual choice for a screen recording; 24 for smooth motion; 2–4 for a slideshow.
3. Choose the colour count. 128 is a good default. Fewer colours means a much smaller file and visible banding; 256 is the format's hard ceiling.
4. Set an output width if the source is large. This is the single most effective way to shrink a GIF.
5. Build and download. The status line reports the frame count, dimensions, palette size and final file size.

The 256-colour ceiling, and what to do about it

GIF stores each pixel as an index into a palette of at most 256 colours. This encoder samples across every frame and builds one shared palette by median cut, which is what keeps colours stable from frame to frame — a per-frame palette makes flat backgrounds shimmer as the quantisation shifts underneath them.

Dithering trades noise for apparent colour depth. Floyd–Steinberg pushes each pixel's quantisation error into its neighbours, so a gradient that would band into visible steps becomes a fine stipple instead. It usually looks better and it usually makes the file bigger, because the added noise is harder to compress. For flat-colour content — screencasts, line art, UI motion — turn it off: the source already has few colours and dithering only adds weight.

Transparency is one bit

A GIF pixel is either fully opaque or fully transparent; there is nothing in between. With the option on, any pixel less than half opaque becomes fully transparent and everything else becomes fully opaque, which is why soft anti-aliased edges get a hard, jagged fringe. If your frames have semi-transparent edges and the result looks ragged, either place them on a solid background first with Background, or use APNG, which keeps the full alpha channel.

Keeping the file small

In order of effect: reduce the dimensions — cost scales with area, so halving the width quarters the pixel count. Drop frames — 10 fps instead of 24 is less than half the data and usually reads the same. Lower the colour count — 64 colours is often indistinguishable from 128 on screen content. Turn off dithering. And be honest about the format: for anything longer than a few seconds, a WebM or MP4 will be five to ten times smaller at better quality, and every browser plays it. GIF wins on universal pasteability, not on efficiency.

FAQ