Convert PNG to GIF
This makes a GIF out of the PNG you already have. GIF is the short looping animation that plays anywhere: any browser, any chat, any email, with nothing to install. Your file never leaves your computer.
Need the other direction? Convert GIF to PNG
How to convert PNG to GIF
- 1 Drop your PNG .png file onto the page, or click to browse for it.
- 2 Check the options. Nothing is thrown away on the way to GIF, so there is no quality dial to set.
- 3 Convert. The work happens on your own machine, so how long it takes depends on your computer and the file.
- 4 Download the GIF, or add more files and do the whole set in one go.
Why convert PNG to GIF
- Animation plays everywhere with no player or plugin needed.
- Flat colours stay crisp, with nothing smudged around the edges.
- Short looping animations and reaction clips.
- PNG: no native animation support outside the rarely used APNG extension.
PNG compared with GIF
How the two formats differ on the things that decide whether a conversion is worth making.
| Property | PNG | GIF |
|---|---|---|
| File extension | .png | .gif |
| Animation | No | Yes |
| Colour depth | Up to 16 bits per channel, 48-bit colour | 8-bit indexed, 256 colours per frame |
| Introduced | 1996 | 1987 |
| Developed by | PNG Development Group / W3C | CompuServe |
Quality and what changes
Both sides are lossless, so every pixel survives the trip intact and converting back returns the same image. What changes is the size and what the file can carry: GIF compresses the same data with a different algorithm, so the size can move in either direction.
- One GIF limitation to keep in mind: only 256 colours per frame, which wrecks photos and smooth gradients.
Questions about PNG to GIF
Why does the GIF look grainy or banded?
GIF allows only 256 colours per frame. Photographic content, gradients and skin tones cannot be represented exactly, so the encoder dithers, which reads as speckle. Flat graphic content survives the palette far better than filmed footage.
Is my PNG file uploaded anywhere?
No. The whole thing runs inside the browser tab you already have open. Your PNG is read straight from your own disk, converted on your machine and handed back as a GIF. Nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is stored and there is no account.
Is there a file size limit?
There is no server-side limit because no server sees the file. The real ceiling is your device memory, since the input and the output both have to fit in the tab. A few hundred megabytes is usually fine on a desktop machine and considerably less on a phone.
Can I convert several PNG files at once?
Yes. Add as many as you like and they are processed one after another, then offered as separate GIF downloads or as a single ZIP. Speed depends on your own processor rather than on a queue.
Does the converter work offline?
Yes, after the page has loaded once. The engine is cached by the browser, so you can disconnect, reload and keep converting. That falls out of doing the work locally rather than being a separate mode you switch on.