GIF maker: turn photos into a GIF

How it works

Tap or click the box and choose the photos for your GIF. They play in the order you select them: on a phone that is the order you tick them in the gallery, on a computer the order in the file dialog. Next, pick how long each photo stays on screen — 0.5 seconds is the usual GIF pace, 1 or 2 seconds feels like a slideshow. The width is the setting that decides the file size; the height follows the shape of the first photo. Example: 8 phone photos of 4000×3000 pixels at 480 px and 0.5 s give a 480×360, 4-second GIF of roughly 1–2 MB. If some photos are portrait and some landscape, "Fit" shows each photo whole and leaves the empty edge transparent, while "Fill" covers the frame and crops what sticks out. Give it a single photo and you get a still GIF, which is also how you convert a JPG to GIF. After you press "Make GIF", the result line lists the frames, pixel size, total length and number of colors used. Video files are not accepted here.

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What is Animated GIF?

An animated GIF is an image file that plays several pictures one after another. Each frame carries its own delay, and the file stores a loop count — with an infinite loop the animation restarts when it ends. There is no sound and each frame holds at most 256 colors, but WhatsApp, iMessage, Slack, email clients and practically every web page play a GIF without any extra app. That is why it is still the easiest way to share a short sequence of photos, a product spin or a step-by-step demo.

What is Frame delay?

The frame delay is how long one picture stays visible before the next one appears. GIF stores it in hundredths of a second, so 0.5 s is written as 50. Browsers treat anything under 0.02 s as 0.1 s, which is why the shortest choice on this page is 0.2 s. Total length is simply frames × delay: 12 photos at 0.5 s make a 6-second loop. A longer delay does not make the file bigger — the number of frames and the width do.

What is the difference between making a GIF and compressing one?

A GIF maker takes separate photos and builds a new animated GIF from them: you decide the frames, the timing and the loop. A GIF compressor starts from a GIF you already have and makes the file smaller without breaking the animation; it adds no frames and never changes the order. They are often used back to back: build the GIF from photos here, and if it is still too large for email or a chat app, reduce the colors on the compression page. If you only need different pixel dimensions, the GIF resizer is the more direct tool.

Why a GIF made from photos can look grainy

GIF allows at most 256 colors per frame, while a phone photo has tens of thousands of shades. The tool samples every frame, builds one shared palette and rounds each pixel to the nearest palette color. A single palette stops colors from flickering between frames, but smooth gradients — sky, skin, a blurred background — can show fine bands or dots. That is a limit of the GIF format, not a bug; sharing the same photos as a video avoids it.

Transparent PNGs keep their transparent area, but partial transparency is lost: a GIF pixel is either fully transparent or fully opaque, so a logo with a soft shadow may get a slightly stepped edge. With "Fit", the area outside the photo is left transparent too; opened in a dark-themed chat, that edge will look dark.

Which settings for which job

For chat apps, 320 or 480 px and 0.5 s are enough: the file stays small and opens quickly on a phone. When each photo needs to be read — recipe steps, product shots — choose 1 or 2 seconds. To get a sense of motion from a burst of photos or a few time-lapse shots, 0.2 s looks smooth.

When portrait and landscape photos are mixed, the first photo you pick sets the canvas: a landscape first photo gives a landscape GIF. Choose "Fit" if faces or products must not be cut, and "Fill" if you do not want empty edges. Combining many photos at 800 px or at the original width grows the file quickly; if a size limit applies, lower the colors afterwards on the GIF compression page.

Frequently asked questions

How do I make a GIF from photos?

Pick the photos in the box in the order they should play, choose how long each stays on screen and the width, then press "Make GIF". The GIF is built in your browser within seconds and the "Download" button saves it to your Downloads folder. No account and no app install are needed.

How many photos can I add?

There is no fixed count; the limit is the total number of pixels. At 480 px width hundreds of frames work; at 800 px or the original width fewer do, and the tool tells you to choose a smaller width if you go over. For sharing, 10 to 30 photos is the comfortable range — more makes the file heavy.

Can I make a GIF from a video?

Not with this tool; only photos and image files are accepted. Turning a video into a GIF means pulling frames out of the video, which this page does not do. If you take a few screenshots of the moments you want and add them here, you get a similar GIF.

Are my photos uploaded anywhere?

No. The photos never leave your device; preparing the frames, choosing the colors and writing the GIF all happen inside your browser, and the page keeps working even if you go offline after it loads. With many large photos it may take a few seconds on a phone, because your device does the work, not a server.