Compress GIF
Shrink animated GIFs by up to 70% with lossy compression, palette reduction and frame optimization. Batch up to 10 files at once. Need an exact limit for Discord or Slack? Use Compress GIF to Size.
- Batch up to 10
- 3 presets + manual
- ZIP download
Drop your GIF files here
or click anywhere to browse
How to compress a GIF
Upload your GIFs
Drop up to 10 animated GIFs, each up to 30 MB. Grabbing one from the web first? Use the GIF URL Downloader.
Pick a preset
Light keeps near-original quality, Balanced is the best all-rounder and Maximum squeezes hardest. Fine-tune colors, lossiness and dithering if you like.
Compress
Each GIF is optimized frame by frame with gifsicle, with ImageMagick as a fallback.
Download
Save files one by one or grab them all in a single ZIP. If a result would be larger than the original, you get the original back.
How GIF compression works
A GIF stores a sequence of frames, each limited to 256 colors and squeezed with LZW compression. That leaves several places to save bytes.
Unchanged pixels between frames can be stored once. The palette can often shrink without visible change. And lossy LZW lets the encoder pick slightly "wrong" pixels when that makes the data compress much better.
What each setting does
- Colors sets the palette size. 128 is usually invisible; 64 and below can show banding on gradients.
- Lossy compression controls how much noise the encoder may add for better compression. 30-80 is subtle, 150+ is aggressive.
- Dithering mixes palette colors to fake missing ones. Floyd-Steinberg looks best, ordered dithering compresses better, none is cleanest for flat art.
- Resize scales every frame. Halving dimensions removes about three quarters of the data.
- Keep every Nth frame drops frames and gives their time to the frames that remain. The animation gets choppier, keeps its speed and gets much smaller.
Presets at a glance
| Preset | Colors | Lossy | Frames | Typical saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light | 256 | 30 | All | 20-50% |
| Balanced | 128 | 80 | All | 40-65% |
| Maximum | 64 | 160 | Every 2nd | 60-85% |
When GIF isn't the right format
For long clips or photographic video, GIF is inefficient by design. An MP4 or WebP of the same clip is often many times smaller. Our guide GIF vs WebP vs MP4 vs APNG: Which Format Should You Use? explains when to switch.
When you do need a GIF, compress last. Crop and resize first, then compress the result. For the complete checklist, read How to Reduce GIF File Size: 9 Methods That Actually Work.
Compress GIF questions
How much can I reduce a GIF's file size?
Most animated GIFs shrink by 40-70% on the Balanced preset. Photographic GIFs with smooth gradients shrink the most. Flat cartoons, pixel art and GIFs that were already optimized shrink less, sometimes only 10-20%.
Is GIF compression lossy or lossless?
Both are possible. Frame optimization and duplicate removal are lossless. Lossy LZW and palette reduction trade a little detail for much smaller files. Set the lossy slider to 0 and colors to 256 for a lossless-only pass.
Which preset should I choose?
Balanced suits web pages, blogs and chat. Light is for detailed or photographic GIFs where artifacts would show. Maximum is for strict limits and slow connections; it also drops every 2nd frame.
Can I compress several GIFs at once?
Yes, up to 10 GIFs per batch with the same settings. When three or more are done, a Download all as ZIP button appears.
My GIF did not get any smaller. Why?
It was probably optimized already. Try reducing colors to 64 and raising lossiness, or make it physically smaller with Resize GIF. Shrinking dimensions is the most powerful size lever.
Is it safe to upload my GIFs?
Yes. Files are sent over HTTPS, processed in a private folder and deleted automatically within 12 hours. No account is needed. Still having trouble? Please contact us and we'll be happy to help!