GIF to WebP Converter — Convert Animated GIF to WebP Online
Drop an animated GIF below and pick WEBP as the output format. Every frame, every frame delay, and the loop count come across intact — the result is an animated WebP, not a still of the opening frame. Free, private, and entirely in your browser with no upload required.
Drop images here or click to browse
Supports HEIC, WEBP, AVIF, BMP, TIFF, SVG, GIF, ICO, PDF, JPG, PNG
100% Private — Your files never leave your device
All conversion happens directly in your browser using JavaScript. Nothing is uploaded to any server. Your images stay on your computer the entire time.
Animated WebP vs. GIF: file size and browser support
Both clips below are 480 × 270 and 24 frames long. One is a photographic pan across this site's own homepage photo; the other is that same photo held still with a single small element moving across it — roughly the two things animated GIFs are actually used for. Every number was measured, not estimated.
| Encoding | Photographic pan | Mostly static |
|---|---|---|
| Original GIF | 2.4 MB | 122.2 KB |
| WebP at 92% (default) | 1.1 MB (54% smaller) | 76.9 KB (37% smaller) |
| WebP at 75% | 588.6 KB (76% smaller) | 43.0 KB (65% smaller) |
| WebP at 50% | 459.2 KB (81% smaller) | 34.1 KB (72% smaller) |
The useful lesson is in the middle row rather than the headline. At the default 92% the saving is real but unremarkable, because a GIF arrives pre-dithered and WebP spends bits faithfully reproducing that speckle. Give the slider one nudge down to 75% and the saving roughly doubles, since the codec is finally permitted to smooth away noise that the original video never had. For an animation headed for a web page, 75% is usually the setting you want.
Browser support is no longer the reason to hesitate. Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera have played animated WebP for years, and Safari added WebP in version 14 (2020) — so every current browser handles the file you get here. The remaining gaps are outside the browser: some older desktop viewers and image editors will open an animated WebP but show only its first frame, and a few chat platforms still insist on being fed a GIF. If AVIF is also on the table, our WebP vs AVIF comparison covers how the two modern codecs differ on animation, encode speed, and support, and GIF to AVIF compresses a photographic clip harder than anything here — at the cost of transparency Safari cannot yet draw.
How to Convert GIF to WebP
- Drag your GIF into the drop zone, or click to browse and select it.
- Choose WEBP from the Output Format menu — this is the step that keeps the animation.
- Lower the Quality slider if you want a smaller file, or raise it to stay closer to the original.
- Download the WebP — it's saved straight to your device.
You can drop several GIFs at once and take them away together as a ZIP. Nothing is uploaded: the GIF is decoded, and each frame re-encoded, on your own machine. A long animation has a lot of frames to work through, so give a multi-hundred-frame file a moment to finish.
What Survives the Conversion
- Every frame, in order, composited exactly as a browser would draw the GIF.
- Frame delays, individually — a clip that pauses on one frame still pauses.
- The loop count, whether that is three times or forever.
- Transparent pixels, including frames that only redraw part of the picture.
- More colour headroom than the GIF ever had: WebP is not limited to 256 colours per frame, so nothing further is lost to the palette.
Frames that are identical to the one before them are folded into a single longer frame rather than stored twice, and each frame stores only the region that actually changed. That is why the static clip in the table above compresses so much better than the pan: on a still background there is very little to re-encode.
When WebP Is the Wrong Choice
- You only wanted one frame. GIF to PNG gives you a lossless still; GIF to JPG gives you a smaller one.
- The animation is long or high-resolution. Real video compression wins outright — convert the GIF to MP4 instead.
- Something downstream demands a GIF. Some older chat and forum software still does; that is the one job GIF is still uniquely good at.
- The image is over 16,383 pixels on a side. WebP cannot encode it at all.
Not sure which format the job calls for? Our image format by use case guide walks through web, print, email, and archive. And if you have WebP files that a stubborn old application refuses to open, WebP to GIF handles the return trip.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does WebP support animation?
Yes. A WebP file can hold a whole sequence of frames, each with its own delay, plus a loop count — the same things a GIF carries. It is not a separate format either: an animated WebP is still a .webp file, and every current browser plays it. Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera have supported WebP for years, and Safari added it in version 14 (2020). The one place animation gets dropped is older desktop software that only ever learned to read a single still frame.
Will my animated GIF stay animated?
Yes, as long as you pick WEBP as the output format. This converter reads every frame of the GIF, keeps each frame's delay and the loop count, and writes them into the WebP. A GIF that looped forever still loops forever; one that played three times still plays three times. Choosing any other output format — JPG, PNG, BMP and the rest — gives you a still image of the first frame instead, because none of those formats can carry animation.
How much smaller is animated WebP than GIF?
It depends on the picture and on where you leave the Quality slider, so the honest answer is a range rather than a number. On the two test clips measured above, the default 92% quality cut a photographic animation by 54% and a mostly-static one by 37%. Dropping the slider to 75% took the same clips down by 76% and 65%. The tool prints the exact before-and-after size for your own file as soon as it converts, which beats any figure quoted on a web page.
Does converting GIF to WebP lose quality?
WebP is lossy at the default setting, so it does discard some detail. In practice the damage that matters was done long before you got here: GIF can only store 256 colours per frame, so a photographic GIF has already been crushed to a palette and dithered. WebP encodes what is actually in the file, and at 92% the difference is hard to see. It will not restore the colours the GIF threw away — nothing can — but it will not add new banding either.
Why is my WebP not much smaller at the default quality?
Because dithering is expensive to compress. The speckled noise a GIF encoder sprinkles across gradients is, to a lossy codec, fine detail worth preserving — so at a high quality setting WebP dutifully spends bits keeping it. Lower the Quality slider to around 75% and the saving usually doubles, because the codec is finally allowed to smooth away noise that was never in the original image to begin with.
Does the converter keep transparent pixels?
Yes. GIF transparency is all-or-nothing — a pixel is either fully see-through or fully opaque — and those transparent pixels survive the conversion. WebP itself goes further with a full 8-bit alpha channel, so soft, partly transparent edges are possible in WebP even though a GIF could never have supplied them.
Is there a size limit on WebP?
Yes: WebP cannot exceed 16,383 pixels in either direction. GIF allows up to 65,535, so an unusually large animation may need resizing before it will encode. Anything within 16,383 × 16,383 converts without complaint, which covers essentially every GIF that has ever been posted anywhere.
Can I convert GIF to WebP for free?
Yes. This GIF to WebP converter is completely free with no sign-up, watermarks, or file limits. The conversion runs inside your browser, frame by frame, so your files are never uploaded to a server.