JPG to GIF Converter

What happens when you convert JPG to GIF

• The image is decoded and written as a GIF with an optimised 256-colour palette.
• GIF allows 256 colours, so photos pick up some banding. Graphics with flat colours convert cleanly.
• GIF is lossless, so no further detail is lost, but it cannot restore detail the JPG compression already removed. Expect a larger file.

How to convert JPG to GIF online

1. Press "Choose JPG 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 JPG to GIF?

JPG files usually come from camera photos, web images and email attachments. People convert them to GIF because a GIF loops silently in any chat app, email or forum post without a play button.

In short, JPG 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. JPG opens in every browser and image viewer, while GIF opens and animates in every browser.

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

On Windows

Open this page in Chrome, Edge or Firefox, drag your JPG 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 JPG in the first place.

On a Mac

Safari, Chrome and Firefox all work. Drag the JPG 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 JPG 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.

On Android

Open the page in Chrome, tap Choose JPG 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 JPG 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.

JPG vs GIF: the differences

About JPG and GIF files

What is a JPG file?

JPG discards fine detail the eye is least sensitive to, which is why a photo shrinks to a tenth of its raw size but text and sharp edges pick up blocky artefacts. Every re-save at a lossy setting throws away a little more.

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.

JPG 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 file is bigger than expected. The GIF is usually larger, because it stores every pixel without compression losses, while the JPG was compressed lossily.

Convert JPG to GIF from the command line

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

magick input.jpg output.gif

To convert every JPG in a folder at once, use magick mogrify -format gif *.jpg. The converter on this page does the same job without installing anything.