gif → mp4
GIF to MP4, and the file gets much smaller
A GIF is a spectacularly inefficient way to store motion. Converting one to video usually removes ninety percent of the size while making it look better rather than worse.
Processed on your own hardware · never transmitted, never stored
What happens when you drop a file in
The file stays put. Your browser opens it the same way an image viewer would. There is no transfer, which is why there is no upload bar to watch.
An encoder arrives once. The first job on this site pulls down a compiled build of FFmpeg, roughly 30 MB. It is kept afterwards, so every job after the first starts immediately.
Your own hardware does the job. The work happens in this tab, on your processor. A laptop from the last few years handles short clips in well under real time.
The result lands in Downloads. Assembled in memory and handed straight to your browser. Close the tab and every trace of it is gone.
The gap is not marginal
GIF keeps every frame as a separate paletted image and carries nothing forward between them. MP4 stores what changed and applies three decades of refinement to the rest. For the same few seconds of motion, the difference in size is routinely tenfold.
Colour improves at the same time. GIF allows 256 shades per frame, which is where the banding in skies and skin comes from. H.264 carries millions, so gradients arrive smooth instead of striped.
Most platforms already do this quietly. Post a GIF to a social network and it is converted to video behind the scenes before anyone sees it. This just does the same thing before the upload rather than after.
The one thing you give up
Autoplay behaviour is not identical. A GIF loops forever anywhere an image is permitted; an MP4 sometimes wants a play button depending on where it is embedded. Everything else — file size, colour depth, smoothness — moves in your favour, which is why the trade is worth making almost every time.
Common questions
Will it still loop?
On most social platforms, yes — short silent MP4s are looped automatically. In an email or an old forum, possibly not.
Is there sound?
No. GIFs contain none, so the video is silent by definition.
The dimensions changed by a pixel.
H.264 requires even numbers on both sides. An odd-sized GIF loses a single pixel to comply.
Does anything get uploaded?
No, the whole conversion happens in this tab.