SVG to GIF Converter

What happens when you convert SVG to GIF

• The image is decoded and written as a GIF with an optimised 256-colour palette.
• SVG is a vector format, so it is rendered to pixels at the width you choose, 1024 pixels by default. Pick the largest size you will need, because the GIF cannot be scaled up cleanly afterwards.
• GIF transparency is all or nothing, so soft or semi-transparent edges become hard edges.

How to convert SVG to GIF online

1. Press "Choose SVG 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 SVG to GIF?

SVG files usually come from logos, icons, charts and illustrations on the web. People convert them to GIF because a GIF loops silently in any chat app, email or forum post without a play button.

In short, SVG 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. SVG renders natively in every browser, while GIF opens and animates in every browser.

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

On Windows

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

On a Mac

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

SVG vs GIF: the differences

About SVG and GIF files

What is an SVG file?

SVG describes shapes as text instructions, so it stays sharp at any size and a simple logo can be under 5 KB. Turning it into pixels fixes it at one resolution, so choose the output size before converting.

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.

SVG 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. An SVG is a short list of drawing instructions, while the GIF stores every pixel, so the output is normally larger and grows with the width you choose.

Convert SVG to GIF from the command line

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

magick input.svg output.gif

To convert every SVG in a folder at once, use magick mogrify -format gif *.svg. For best results with SVG, set the size with -density or -resize. The converter on this page does the same job without installing anything.