Turn WebM files into GIF
Turn a few seconds of your WebM into a GIF you can post anywhere. WebM is a free video format built for web pages, so browsers play it with no plugin and no licence behind it. Expect the GIF to be a good deal bigger, which is what keeping every detail costs. Your file never leaves your computer.
Need the other direction? Convert GIF to WebM
How to convert WebM to GIF
- 1 Drop your WebM .webm file onto the page, or click to browse for it.
- 2 Set the start and end points, the width and how smooth the motion should be. The size estimate updates as you go.
- 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 WebM to GIF
- You want a copy that will not get any worse each time you edit and save it, and GIF gives you that.
- Animation plays everywhere with no player or plugin needed.
- Flat colours stay crisp, with nothing smudged around the edges.
- Animated content for platforms that will not accept video.
- WebM: safari came to it late, and playback is uneven on older devices.
WebM compared with GIF
How the two formats differ on the things that decide whether a conversion is worth making.
| Property | WebM | GIF |
|---|---|---|
| File extension | .webm | .gif |
| Compression | Lossy | Lossless |
| Animation | No | Yes |
| Typical file size | Smaller | Larger |
| Browser support | All current browsers | Every browser |
| Introduced | 2010 | 1987 |
| Developed by | CompuServe |
Quality and what changes
GIF stores every pixel exactly, but it can only preserve what the WebM already contained. The compression artefacts baked into the source are preserved perfectly along with everything else, so the picture does not improve, it just stops degrading. Expect the file to grow substantially, often several times over, because WebM was discarding data that GIF now has to write out in full.
- One GIF limitation to keep in mind: file sizes are enormous compared to an equivalent MP4 or WebM.
Questions about WebM to GIF
Does converting WebM to GIF improve the quality?
No. GIF preserves what it is given perfectly, including the compression artefacts already present in the WebM. It stops further loss from happening, which is worth doing before editing, but it cannot recover detail that was discarded.
Why is my GIF bigger than the WebM?
Because WebM was discarding data and GIF is not. A lossless format has to write out every pixel it is handed, artefacts included, so growing several times over is normal and does not mean anything went wrong.
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 WebM file uploaded anywhere?
No. The whole thing runs inside the browser tab you already have open. Your WebM 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 WebM 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.