HEIF to GIF Converter

What happens when you convert HEIF to GIF

• The image is decoded and written as a GIF with an optimised 256-colour palette.
• GIF transparency is all or nothing, so soft or semi-transparent edges become hard edges.
• GIF allows 256 colours, so photos pick up some banding. Graphics with flat colours convert cleanly.
• Browsers other than Safari cannot read HEIF, so a decoder of about 1.3 MB is fetched when you press Convert.
• GIF is lossless, so no further detail is lost, but it cannot restore detail the HEIF compression already removed. Expect a larger file.

How to convert HEIF to GIF online

1. Press "Choose HEIF files" and select one or more files, or drag them onto the box. You can add files of any size your device can hold in memory.
2. Adjust the settings if you need to. The output is lossless, so there is no quality setting to worry about.
3. Press "Convert to GIF". Images convert in a second or two each.
4. Save each GIF with its download button. Close the tab and every trace of the files is gone from memory.

Why convert HEIF to GIF?

HEIF files usually come from photos from Samsung, Sony and other Android cameras that support it. People convert them to GIF because a GIF loops silently in any chat app, email or forum post without a play button.

In short, HEIF is good at what it was made for, and GIF is the more practical choice when the file has to open, upload or print somewhere else. Safari on Apple devices shows HEIF; Chrome, Edge and Firefox cannot, while GIF opens and animates in every browser.

How to convert HEIF to GIF on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android

On Windows

Open this page in Chrome, Edge or Firefox, drag your HEIF files in from File Explorer, and press Convert. Each GIF is saved to your Downloads folder. Paint can also re-save an image as GIF with Save as, provided Windows can open the HEIF in the first place.

On a Mac

Safari, Chrome and Firefox all work. Drag the HEIF files from Finder onto the drop zone and the GIF files land in Downloads.

On iPhone and iPad

Open the page in Safari and tap Choose HEIF files. You can pick from Photos or from the Files app. The converted GIF appears in Files, in the Downloads folder; to put it in your photo library, open it there, tap Share and choose Save Image. To stop the iPhone creating HEIF files in future, go to Settings, Camera, Formats and choose Most Compatible.

On Android

Open the page in Chrome, tap Choose HEIF files and pick them from Files or your gallery. The GIF is saved to the Download folder, where any file manager can find it.

Best settings for HEIF to GIF

Width and frame rate decide the size of a GIF far more than anything else. 480 pixels at 12 frames per second is a good balance for reaction clips; 320 pixels suits chat apps with small previews; 640 pixels at 15 frames per second looks smooth but grows quickly.

Every extra second adds frames, so trim the source to the moment you need before converting. A 3 second clip at the default settings is usually well under 2 MB.

HEIF vs GIF: the differences

About HEIF and GIF files

What is a HEIF file?

HEIF is the container standard and HEIC is the name Apple gives files that use it with HEVC compression. Android phones that shoot in this format usually label the file .heif.

What is a GIF file?

GIF stores each frame with a palette of at most 256 colours, so photos turn grainy and animations get large fast. Transparency is on or off per pixel, with no soft edges.

HEIF to GIF not working? Common problems

• Colours look slightly different. Browsers convert images to the standard sRGB colour space when they decode them, so wide-gamut and CMYK images can shift a little.
• A phone photo comes out upright even though it looked sideways elsewhere. That is correct: the rotation stored in the photo is applied during conversion, so the GIF is always the right way up.
• The HEIF will not load. Some HEIC files hold depth maps or bursts; the main image is converted. If nothing loads, try again in Safari on the iPhone itself, or set Settings, Camera, Formats to Most Compatible for future photos.

Convert HEIF to GIF from the command line

If you work in a terminal, ImageMagick converts HEIF to GIF in one line:

magick input.heif output.gif

To convert every HEIF in a folder at once, use magick mogrify -format gif *.heif. Your ImageMagick build needs HEIC support (libheif), which the official installers include. The converter on this page does the same job without installing anything.