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GIF Compressor

Make GIFs smaller online, animated ones included. The animation and its timing stay; fewer colours is what shrinks the file.

Drop GIF files here or click to browse
Select GIF images to compress, several at once
GIF files up to 40 MB each. Animated GIFs stay animated with their timing, and transparency stays.
Images are compressed in memory on our server and sent straight back. Nothing is stored.

Reduce GIF size by using fewer colours

A GIF can show at most 256 colours per frame, and every extra colour makes each frame harder to pack. This GIF compressor rebuilds the palette of every frame with only as many colours as you allow, which is what makes the file smaller. Animated GIFs stay animated with their timing and loop, and transparent pixels stay transparent.

Drop several GIFs at once, up to 40 MB each. Width and height never change, and a GIF that cannot get smaller comes back unchanged. Camera EXIF data is removed from the file.

What Maximum colors changes

Maximum colors takes 16 to 256 and starts at 256. Lower it until the file is small enough:

Gets smaller

  • The palette of each frame, down to as few as 16 colours
  • The file size, because fewer colours are easier to store
  • Gradients and shadows turn into visible bands at low values

Stays the same

  • The animation, its timing and the loop
  • Transparency
  • Width and height
ContentMaximum colors to tryWhy
Photos and video clips 128 to 256 Skin tones and gradients need the shades.
Screen recordings, UI 64 to 128 Flat areas and text use few colours.
Logos, cartoons, pixel art 16 to 64 Few colours to begin with, so little changes.

Picking a smaller palette is called quantization. How image quantization works explains why flat graphics survive it and photos show banding.

When the GIF is still too big

  • Your case

    It has to fit a limit such as 10 MB or 1 MB.

    What to do

    There is no target size field. Lower Maximum colors step by step and check the size shown after each run. Limits per app, Discord included, are listed in maximum file sizes.

  • Your case

    The animation is long or large in pixels.

    What to do

    This page does not drop frames or resize, so fix it at the source. The video converter makes a GIF from a clip at 12 frames per second and up to 960 px wide. How frame rate changes size is in GIF frame rate.

  • Your case

    The place you post to accepts WebP.

    What to do

    Animated WebP is a much more efficient format. Google measured animated GIFs converted to lossy WebP at about 64% smaller. The WebP compressor shrinks WebP files you already have.

How to compress a GIF

  1. Drop your GIFs

    Add one or several GIF files, up to 40 MB each.

  2. Set Maximum colors

    Keep 256 for the safest result or lower the number for a smaller file.

  3. Compress and download

    Click Compress GIF, compare the size before and after for each file, and download them.

GIF compressor questions

Yes. The animation, its timing and the loop are kept, so it plays as before with fewer colours per frame.

It probably already uses few colours or was optimized by an editor. Try a lower Maximum colors. A GIF that cannot shrink comes back unchanged, and a long animation has to be shortened at the source.

Compress it, check the size and lower Maximum colors until it fits Discord's current limit. The limits are in maximum file sizes.

No. This page keeps the width and height and does not remove frames. To get a smaller animation in pixels or frames, make the GIF again from the video with the video converter.

No. A GIF has no quality setting, only its palette, so Maximum colors is the one control that changes the size.

No. Each GIF is compressed in memory on the server and sent straight back, and nothing is stored.