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ImageConverter

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AVIF to GIF Converter

Convert an AVIF image into a GIF. These formats are thirty-two years apart, and this is the largest step backwards available on this site: expect the file to roughly triple and the colour range to collapse to 256. There is exactly one thing GIF does better, and it is the reason anyone does this.

Deleted automatically Uploads removed within 30 minutes

Drag and drop your AVIF images here

Add several at once. Each file is processed and then deleted from our server.

Up to 20 MB per file Batch ready

#ffffff

GIF cannot store transparency, so it is filled with this colour.

Step by step

How to convert AVIF to GIF in 3 steps

  1. Add your AVIF file

  2. Choose a background colour for any transparent areas

  3. Download your GIF

Format comparison

AVIF vs GIF

AVIF (AV1 Image File Format)

Lossy or lossless

The newest widely supported web format, built on the AV1 video codec and designed for the smallest files.

  • Usually the smallest file at a given visual quality
  • Supported by current Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari
  • Slow to encode, and unsupported by much older software

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)

256 colours

The long-standing format for simple animations, limited to a palette of 256 colours per frame.

  • Animation that plays almost anywhere
  • Tiny files for flat graphics with few colours
  • Only 256 colours, so photographs look grainy or banded

Thirty-two years in one conversion

AVIF appeared in 2019, built from AV1 video compression. GIF appeared in 1987, when a high-end display showed 256 colours at once and that limit seemed generous rather than crippling.

Every measure moves the wrong way:

  • Colours: AVIF handles millions, including tones outside the standard sRGB range. GIF holds 256 per frame.
  • Size: measured on a real photograph, a 24 KB AVIF became a 97 KB GIF. Roughly four times, for a worse-looking image.
  • Transparency: AVIF has a full alpha channel with 256 levels. GIF has one bit — fully visible or fully invisible — so soft edges become jagged ones.
  • Compression: AVIF uses two decades of video research. GIF uses a general-purpose scheme from the 1980s that expects long runs of identical pixels.

The one thing GIF wins

It works absolutely everywhere. Every browser since the early nineties, every image viewer, every chat client, every forum, every piece of software written in the last three decades.

AVIF is supported by current browsers and almost nothing else. Desktop previews, office software, older phones, printers and most business systems still cannot open it. If you need an image that will simply work for someone whose software you do not control, that universality is worth real quality.

Though if that is your goal, AVIF to JPG is almost always the better answer: JPEG is equally universal, keeps all the colours, and produces a far smaller file. Choose GIF only if something specifically demands GIF.

Expect visible banding

AVIF is used for photographs and rich graphics, which is exactly the content a 256-colour palette handles worst. Smooth gradients become stripes or a haze of dithered dots; skin and skies shift to whichever palette entry is nearest.

The image will not look subtly worse. It will look like a 1990s web graphic, because that is the technology it is being stored with.

Quality

Quality and file size

There is no quality setting. GIF offers none — the palette limit is the format.

Wide colour is lost twice over

AVIF can carry colours beyond sRGB, which is one of its genuine advantages on modern displays. Those are mapped into sRGB first, and then into a 256-entry palette. A deliberately wide-gamut image loses the most, and saturated colours flatten noticeably.

Animation does not carry across

AVIF supports animation, and so does GIF, but this tool converts a single still image. An animated AVIF becomes a still image.

That is worth knowing because converting an animated AVIF to an animated GIF is a plausible thing to want — AVIF animations play in browsers and nowhere else. It needs a tool built for frame sequences, which this is not.

Reduce the damage

  • Resize down first if the image will be shown small. Fewer pixels means less visible banding and a much smaller GIF.
  • Crop tightly. A narrower range of colours makes 256 entries go further.
  • Reconsider the target. If the requirement is "an image that opens anywhere", JPG meets it better in every respect.

Why anyone has an AVIF

Unlike HEIC, which arrives from an iPhone by accident, AVIF is almost always deliberate:

  • Saved from a modern website, increasingly common as sites adopt it.
  • Exported by a developer or designer optimising page load times.
  • Produced by a build pipeline generating several formats at once.

That matters, because it means an original almost certainly exists. If the AVIF was generated from a master image, converting that will give a better result than routing through AVIF and then through a 256-colour palette.

When GIF is genuinely required

  • Legacy forums and internal tools that whitelist GIF.
  • Very old email clients, still in use in some organisations.
  • Frames for an animation where every frame must be a GIF.
  • Systems whose upload validation predates everything else — a surprisingly large category in enterprise software.

The honest recommendation

If you can use anything else, use anything else:

  • JPG — universal, all colours, smallest of the compatible options. The right answer for photographs.
  • PNG — universal, lossless, keeps transparency properly. The right answer for graphics.
  • WebP — much smaller, works in every current browser, keeps everything.

GIF is for when a specific system leaves you no choice.

What happens to your file

Browsers cannot reliably decode AVIF for conversion, so this runs on our server. Your upload is deleted the moment conversion finishes, the result is deleted as you download it, and anything abandoned is swept automatically.

Privacy

What happens to your file

This tool runs on our server, so it works the same on every phone and computer. Your file is uploaded, and this is exactly what happens to it:

  • Stored outside the public web root under a random name, never under your file's name.
  • Processed, with the original upload deleted immediately — whether it succeeded or failed.
  • The result sits behind a signed link that only you receive, which stops working after 20 minutes, and the file is deleted the moment you download it.
  • Anything never collected is deleted automatically within 30 minutes.
  • The image itself is never logged or kept. If a conversion fails, we record the formats involved and the error — not the file.
  • Camera metadata, including any GPS coordinates recording where a photo was taken, is removed from the result. Only the rotation needed to show the image the right way up is kept.

Questions & answers

AVIF to GIF: frequently asked questions

Why does the file get so much bigger?

Because AVIF uses two decades of video compression research and GIF uses a general-purpose scheme from the 1980s that expects long runs of identical pixels — which photographs do not have. Measured on a real photo, a 24 KB AVIF became a 97 KB GIF, roughly four times the size for a worse-looking image.

Why does my image look like a 1990s web graphic?

Because that is the technology storing it. GIF holds 256 colours per frame, a limit set when a high-end display showed 256 colours at once. Smooth gradients become stripes or a haze of dithered dots, and skin and skies shift to whichever palette entry is nearest.

Then why would anyone convert AVIF to GIF?

Because GIF works absolutely everywhere — every browser since the early nineties, every viewer, every forum, every piece of software from the last three decades. AVIF works in current browsers and almost nothing else. That universality is sometimes worth real quality, though JPG usually meets the same need far better.

What should I use instead?

JPG for photographs — universal, all the colours, smallest of the compatible options. PNG for graphics, since it is lossless and keeps transparency properly. WebP if the audience is browsers, since it is much smaller and keeps everything. GIF only when a specific system leaves no choice.

What happens to transparency?

AVIF has a full alpha channel with 256 levels; GIF has one bit, fully visible or fully invisible. Soft edges become jagged, and semi-transparent pixels are flattened onto the background colour you choose — so pick the colour the image will actually sit on.

Can I convert an animated AVIF to an animated GIF?

Not here — this converts a single still image, so an animated AVIF becomes a still image. It is a reasonable thing to want, since AVIF animations play in browsers and nowhere else, but it needs a tool built for frame sequences.

Keep going

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