APNG to GIF Converter
Turn an animated PNG into a GIF that plays in places where APNG shows up as a frozen picture. Every frame and its delay carry over; the trade-offs are a 256-color palette and hard-edged transparency.
Image Converter
or drop JPG, JPEG, JPE … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
85 keeps photos visually identical to the original. Lower it only when you need a smaller file.
JPG, BMP and EPS have no transparency. Transparent pixels are filled with this color.
Hex color used behind transparent pixels, e.g. #FFFFFF.
This format holds a single image. Choose GIF or WebP output if you want to keep the animation.
A multi-size icon contains several resolutions in one file; browsers and operating systems pick the one they need.
Keep the original dimensions, or enter one side and the aspect ratio is kept.
Pixels for the side you chose above.
Percentage of the original dimensions.
sRGB is right for screens and the web. Keep the original for print workflows; grayscale discards color.
Metadata only, 0 keeps the original value. Printers and some portals read this number; it does not change pixel dimensions.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload the animated PNG
Add up to 20 files, 95 MB each. Both .apng files and animated files that end in plain .png are accepted.
- 2
Optionally shrink the frames
GIF is preselected. If the animation is wide, open Advanced settings and set a width under Resize output image; smaller frames make a much lighter GIF.
- 3
Convert to GIF
Press Convert to GIF and download the files, or a ZIP for a batch.
Convert APNG to GIF for chats, forums and email
Animated PNG adds frames to the ordinary PNG format. Its first frame is stored as a normal PNG image, and software that does not understand the extra frame chunks simply shows that picture. That is why APNGs so often look broken: the file opens everywhere, but outside current browsers it rarely moves.
Chat apps, forum software and image hosts commonly resize uploads with libraries that read the first frame and stop. Email is harder still; desktop mail clients have supported animated GIF for decades, while APNG support is patchy. If you want an animated sticker or reaction to move for everybody who sees it, GIF is the format those systems were built around.
The conversion reads every frame of the APNG, composes it the way a browser would, and writes it into a GIF with the same delay and loop count.
| GIF from this page | Original APNG | Animated WebP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plays in current browsers | yes | yes | yes |
| Moves in most desktop email clients | yes | no | no |
| Survives most forum and chat upload processing | yes | Often a still | Varies |
| More than 256 colors per frame | no | yes | yes |
| Smooth semi-transparent edges | no | yes | yes |
APNG
Animated PNG
APNG is an extension of PNG that stores several frames to create an animation, proposed by Mozilla developers in 2004. Unlike GIF it supports full 24-bit colour and smooth 8-bit alpha transparency, so animated edges look clean on any background. Older PNG viewers simply show the first frame, which makes the format backward compatible. All modern browsers play APNG, but many editors, messaging apps and social networks still treat it as a static PNG. Files can be large because each frame is stored losslessly.
- Compression
- Lossless
- Transparency
- Yes
- Animation
- Yes
- Introduced
- 2004 · Mozilla
GIF
Graphics Interchange Format
GIF was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and is still the most widely supported format for short, looping animations. It is lossless but limited to a palette of 256 colours per frame, so photos and gradients show banding and dithering. It supports only on/off (1-bit) transparency, which leaves jagged edges on curved shapes. Animated GIFs are often far larger than the same clip as MP4 or WebP. Every browser, chat app and social platform plays GIFs.
- Compression
- Lossless
- Transparency
- Yes
- Animation
- Yes
- Introduced
- 1987 · CompuServe
APNG to GIF is about compatibility: the animated PNG plays in browsers but freezes in many chat apps, forum uploaders and mail clients, while GIF moves almost everywhere; going from GIF to APNG is done to win back full color and smooth transparency.
256 colors, on/off transparency and timing after conversion
Each GIF frame can use its own palette of up to 256 colors. For flat-color stickers that is plenty. For gradients, glows and photographic frames, the palette has to approximate missing shades, which shows as banding or a fine dot pattern.
Transparency is the other visible change. An APNG can fade a drop shadow over a dozen semi-transparent pixels; a GIF pixel is either drawn or not. If you know where the GIF will appear, such as a white forum page or a dark Discord theme, an animation with a solid background in that color converts more cleanly than one that relies on soft edges.
Timing carries over frame by frame. GIF delays are counted in hundredths of a second, so very fast APNGs are rounded slightly, and browsers slow frames set below 20 ms down to about 100 ms. If your source runs that fast, see how to make a GIF from a video for frame-rate advice.
APNG to GIF FAQ
How can I tell whether a .png file is actually animated?
Open it in a current browser such as Chrome, Firefox or Safari; an APNG plays there, while most file managers and older viewers show only the first frame. Sticker packs from LINE and many animated emoji are APNGs with an ordinary .png name.
Does the GIF keep the APNG's frame delays?
Yes. Each frame is written with its own display time and the loop setting carries over. GIF counts delays in hundredths of a second, so an APNG delay such as 1/60 of a second is rounded to the nearest step.
Why do soft shadows turn into a ragged outline after converting APNG to GIF?
APNG frames have a full 8-bit alpha channel, so a shadow can fade out smoothly. GIF marks each pixel as either fully visible or fully clear, and the in-between pixels have to be rounded one way or the other. Animations on a solid background are not affected.
Will the GIF be bigger or smaller than the APNG?
It depends on the content. Flat cartoon stickers with few colors often get smaller, because GIF stores 256-color frames compactly. Photo-like or gradient-heavy animations usually grow and gain dither grain, since both formats compress losslessly but GIF works from a reduced palette.
Why does my animated PNG play in the browser but not in my chat app?
Many chat and forum servers re-process uploads to make previews, and their image libraries often keep only the first frame of an APNG. Animated GIF has been handled by those pipelines for decades, so it survives the processing and keeps moving.
Is there a better format than GIF for the same animation?
Where it is accepted, animated WebP keeps full color and soft transparency in a smaller file; GIF to WebP and the image converter can produce it. GIF remains the choice when the destination names GIF or is an email.
Other animation converters
- PNG to GIF ConverterConvert PNG images to GIF for tools and templates that accept GIF only. See what the 256-color palette and 1-bit transparency do to your image first.
- WebP to GIF ConverterConvert animated WebP to GIF online with every frame and its timing kept. For chat apps, email and editors that play GIF but not WebP. 20 files, no account.
- AVIF to GIF ConverterConvert still or animated AVIF to GIF for email, forums and chat apps that only take GIF. Frames and timing kept, 256 colors per frame, 20 files at once.
- GIF to APNG ConverterConvert an animated GIF to APNG without losing a frame. Ready for LINE animated stickers and Discord stickers, resize on the way, up to 20 files at once.
- PNG to APNG ConverterWrap a PNG in the APNG animation structure for pipelines that need it. Full color and 8-bit alpha kept; learn when a one-frame APNG helps and when it does not.
- GIF to PNG ConverterConvert a GIF to PNG with its transparency kept: take the first frame as a still, or export every frame of an animation as separate PNG files.