Compress GIF
Shrink an animated GIF's file size by lowering color quality — free, entirely on your device.
Drop a GIF here
Choose a compression level below
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How GIF compression works
GIFs are limited to a 256-color palette per frame, and most of a GIF's file size comes from how carefully that palette is chosen. This tool re-encodes every frame with a coarser color-sampling step at your chosen level, trading a small amount of color precision for a meaningfully smaller file — dimensions and timing stay untouched.
If compression alone isn't enough, pairing it with the Resize GIF tool to shrink the dimensions first usually gets the biggest size reduction.
Reading the three compression levels
Light compression is a safe default for anything you plan to keep looking close to the original — it trims the palette just enough to shave off excess weight without a visible difference at normal viewing size. Balanced is the right choice when the GIF's destination has a file-size limit, such as a messaging app or a forum attachment cap, since it usually cuts the file by roughly half. Maximum should be reserved for cases where size matters more than looks, like an email attachment or an embed on a slow-loading page — expect visible banding in smooth color gradients at this level.
If Maximum still isn't small enough, compression alone has limits — the Resize GIF tool, used to shrink the dimensions before compressing, typically saves far more file size than pushing quality any lower.
Why GIF compression works differently from photos
A GIF is limited to 256 colors per frame no matter what — that limit is baked into the format itself, unlike JPG or PNG which can represent millions of colors. Most of the size savings this tool finds comes from how carefully those 256 colors are chosen and how finely dithering is applied across each frame, rather than throwing away resolution or detail the way a photo compressor would.
This recompression runs through a GIF encoder loaded directly in your browser tab, decoding every frame, rebuilding the palette at your chosen level, and re-encoding the result — all without your file ever leaving your device.
Frequently asked questions
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