GIF Forge Help Documentation

A complete guide to GIF Forge, from opening a file to saving a small GIF.

Last Updated: November 11, 2026

1. Getting Started

GIF Forge has six tools in the bar at the top: Open, Frames and speed, Crop and size, Text, Effects and Save. Open something first: drop a GIF, a video or pictures anywhere on the page, paste a picture, press Open files, or press Try an example for a short animation of a bouncing ball. The start screen also has nine tasks, such as Video to GIF or Make a GIF smaller, which open a file and go straight to the right tool.

Once something is open, the picture sits on the stage with a player under it and the strip of frames below. The tool's panel is beside the stage on a wide screen and under it on a phone. Every change can be undone.

2. Opening a GIF

A GIF opens frame by frame, each frame drawn in full as a browser shows it at that moment, with its own time. Frames with no time set (0 or 10 ms) are given 100 ms, as most browsers play them. The Open tab then shows what is known about the animation and, for a GIF, its version, its colours, which frames carry their own colours, see-through parts, comments in the file and a table of every frame with its time, area and how it is cleared. A damaged GIF opens as far as it can be read, with a message.

3. Part of a Video

Opening a video shows it in a window. Play it and press Start here and End here, or move the Start and End sliders; Play this part plays just that part. Choose the frames each second (8 to 30) and the width (up to the video's own). The line under the choices tells you how many frames that makes, their size and the memory they need, and says so when it is more than the tool can hold. Make frames takes the frames one by one from the video; Stop ends it. Videos that do not say how long they are, such as some screen recordings, are measured first.

4. Pictures to Frames

• Order: as you chose them, by file name (numbers in names count as numbers) or reversed.
• Width and shape: 320 to 800 pixels or like the first picture, and the shape of the first picture, square, 4:5, 16:9 or 9:16.
• Pictures of another shape: show all of it on a background colour or see-through, fill and crop, or stretch.
• Each picture shows for 100 ms to 5 seconds, and can blend into the next quickly (4 frames) or slowly (10 frames).

Pictures the browser cannot read are listed and left out. Each picture is read with its long side at most 1,600 pixels.

5. Sprite Sheets and Animated Pictures

Sprite sheet asks for a picture and how many frames there are across and down; a strip of square frames is recognised by itself. The grid is drawn over the sheet, and Frames to use and Each frame set how many frames to take, read row by row, and their time. An animated WebP or PNG opened on its own opens frame by frame in browsers that can take such pictures apart; elsewhere it opens as one picture.

6. Recording the Screen

Record the screen appears where the browser offers screen sharing (most computers, few phones). Your browser asks what to share; a bar with the time and Stop recording appears, and stopping, or ending the sharing from the browser, opens the recording in the video window. The recording is kept in this browser only, without sound.

7. The Stage and the Strip

The player has previous, play and next buttons, the frame number and the time. The square button shows the picture at its actual pixels. The strip shows every frame with its number and time: click one to show it, Shift-click for a run, Ctrl-click to add or remove one, or turn on Choose several on a phone. Drag frames with a mouse to move them. After saving, Saved file switches the stage between the real saved file and the editing view.

8. Frames and Speed

• Chosen frames: Copy, Remove, Earlier, Later, Keep only these, and how long they show (20 ms to 60 s).
• Speed: the slider (a quarter to four times), quick speeds, a total length, or one speed for all frames in frames a second.
• Order: Reverse, Boomerang (forwards then backwards) and Play twice.
• Trim and thin out: keep a range of frames, drop frames while keeping the timing, or join repeated frames.
• Plays: over and over, once or a number of times, and Smooth loop, which blends the last frame into the first.
• Add more: add files at the end, insert after this frame, or record the screen.

9. Crop and Size

Show switches between the whole turned picture with the crop box and the result. Turn left or right, mirror or turn upside down. Drag the crop box or its eight handles, type its numbers, or keep it to a shape (1:1, 4:5, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3). Cut off plain edges looks at up to 30 frames for borders of the corner's colour. Shape with space around makes the picture square, 4:5, 9:16 or 16:9 by adding space in a colour or see-through. Size changes the width and height, keeping the shape if you like, by percentage or to a common width; Sharp pixels keeps pixel art crisp when it is made bigger.

10. Text and Pictures

Add text, then choose a style (Poster, Caption box, Subtitle, Yellow, Handwritten, Label), a font (Bold poster, Clean, Serif, Handwritten, Typewriter), the size as a share of the picture's height, colours, capitals, shadow, outline width, a box behind and how lines line up. A text can be up to 1,000 characters on several lines. Place it at the top, middle or bottom, drag it, or move it with the arrow keys (with Shift in bigger steps) when its box on the picture has focus. Shows on frames limits it to a range, and How it appears makes it fade in, type in letter by letter, pop in, slide up or blink. Add a picture places a logo or sticker you can size and make see-through. Up to 50 texts and pictures can be added; Behind and In front change their order, and each can be hidden, copied or removed.

11. Effects

Twelve looks set the sliders for you: None, Black and white, Noir, Sepia, Vintage, Warm, Cool, Vivid, Matte, Dreamy, Pop and Invert, each shown on the current frame. Then fine-tune brightness, contrast, colour strength, warmth, shift colours, faded and sepia, invert, blur, sharpen, pixelate and dark corners; double-click a slider to put it back. Make a colour see-through removes a colour (pick it from the picture) within How close a colour counts. Fill see-through parts gives holes a solid colour. Reset all effects puts everything back.

12. Saving a GIF

GIF Forge writes its own GIFs. It chooses the best 256 colours for the whole animation from up to 80 sample frames (or its own colours for every frame if you ask), mixes them with dithering (Smooth, Pattern or Retro, or none), stores only the part of each frame that changed, leaves pixels that barely changed as they were, joins frames that change nothing into the frame before, and can allow small colour changes that pack much better (lossy). Best look, Balanced and Small set this for you; Fit a size tries up to eight times to get under the size you set. Make GIF works away from the page so it stays smooth, and Stop ends it. The finished file plays on the stage, with its size, how much smaller it is than the GIF you opened, its frames and how long it took; name it, then Download it or Share it where your device offers sharing.

13. MP4, WebP and APNG

• MP4 uses your browser's own video encoder where it has one, in Good, High or Best quality, with a colour behind see-through parts. It plays once, so Play the frames repeats the frames up to 20 times.
• WebP is an animated WebP in a quality from 10 to 100, with soft see-through edges.
• APNG is an animated PNG that keeps every colour exactly.

WebP and APNG store only the changed part of each frame and join frames that do not change.

14. Frames and Sprite Sheets

Frames saves every frame, or only the chosen ones, as PNG, JPG (on white) or WebP pictures in a zip, with timing.csv listing each frame, its file and its time in milliseconds. Save just this frame as PNG saves the frame on the stage. Sprite sheet puts all frames in one PNG, square, in one row or in one column; a one-row sheet comes with CSS that plays it.

15. Limits

The tool holds up to 2,000 pictures, 1,600 MB of them in memory, and 5,000 frames in the strip; copies of a frame use no extra memory. The video, pictures and sprite sheet windows say when a choice is too much and do not make the frames; a GIF or an animated picture that is too long opens as far as fits, and frames left out are counted in a message. A GIF can have up to 50 million pixels, frame times are 20 ms to 60 seconds, and saved sprite sheets are at most 32,000 pixels on a side.

16. Keyboard and Accessibility

• The keys work while you use the tool (the focus is in it, or nothing has the focus and the tool is on the screen): 1 to 6 switch tools, Space plays or pauses, the left and right arrows step through frames (with Shift they choose a run), Alt with an arrow moves the chosen frames in the strip, Delete removes them, C copies them, Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y undo and redo, Ctrl+S saves with the current settings, Ctrl+V pastes a picture and ? opens the help.
• Every button and box can be reached with Tab; groups of choices move with the arrow keys; changes are announced to screen readers.
• With reduced motion on in your device, the page's own animations are switched off; the animation you make still plays when you press play.

17. Privacy and Your Data

The files you open are read, edited and saved in this browser and never sent to a server. Your choices in the Open, Text and Save windows are kept in this browser under one entry named for this tool, and your last animation with its files (up to about 120 MB) in a small database of its own, so it comes back after a reload; neither is made until you open something or change a setting. Start over or Forget it removes the animation. Settings from the original GIF Forge app, if this browser has them, are brought over once. Record the screen uses screen sharing only when you press it. Like every page on ZeroDataUpload, this page shows ads; the Privacy Policy explains them.

18. How It Was Checked

Before this page was published, the engine behind the tool was checked: 29,093 cases in 13 groups. GIFs made by another program were read and compared frame by frame; GIFs, APNGs and animated WebPs written by the tool were read back by another program and compared with what went in; the packing was checked against its standard; damaged and oversized files were opened; the colour effects were compared with the formulas of the web's filter standard; saved settings and kept animations made to break the tool were checked value by value; and the timing list was read back by a spreadsheet reader. Then the page was tried at four screen widths in both themes, with every tool, every way of saving and very long and broken input.

19. Troubleshooting and Support

• A video does not open. The browser cannot play it; an MP4 with H.264 video usually works.
• The MP4 button cannot be pressed. This browser cannot make video; save a GIF or WebP instead, or use another browser.
• Frames were left out. The animation reached the limits in Limits; choose a shorter part, fewer frames a second or a smaller width.
• The GIF is too big. Choose Small or Fit a size, crop it, make it narrower or drop frames.
• My last animation did not come back. It is kept per browser and device, and not when its files were larger than about 120 MB; a private window or cleared browser data starts afresh.
• Record the screen is missing. This browser or device does not offer screen sharing.

For questions the FAQ does not answer, use the contact form.