5 ways to make a GIF smaller without wrecking it

A GIF stores every frame as a full picture with at most 256 colors. That's why a few seconds of video can turn into a 20 MB file. To shrink one, cut these in order. The first ones save the most and cost the least.

1. Make it shorter

Size grows with every frame, so length is the biggest lever. Cutting a 6-second GIF to the 3 seconds that matter roughly halves the file, and the GIF is usually better for it.

2. Make it narrower

Halving the width cuts the pixels in each frame to a quarter. Most GIFs are viewed in a feed or a chat at under 500px wide, so a 1080px GIF is carrying detail nobody sees. Try 480px first.

3. Lower the frame rate

Video runs at 25 to 60 frames per second. GIFs look fine at 12 to 15, and reaction GIFs get away with 10. Going from 30fps to 15fps removes half the frames.

4. Use fewer colors

Dropping from 256 colors to 128 or 64 helps, but it's the most visible loss: gradients and skin tones start to band. Save this for last.

5. Crop what doesn't matter

Black bars, borders and empty background are pixels you're paying for. Cropping to the subject shrinks the file and makes the GIF read better at small sizes.

The quick way

Compress & resize does steps 2 to 4 for you. Pick where the GIF is going (X, Discord, or your own size limit) and it tries smaller settings until the file fits, keeping as much quality as the limit allows.