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ImageConverter

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GIF to AVIF Converter

Convert a GIF to AVIF, the most efficient image format in common use — typically 70 to 85% smaller in testing. The quality setting behaves very differently depending on what is in your GIF, which is worth a minute below. And one warning first: this conversion keeps a single frame, so if your GIF is animated, use GIF to WebP instead.

Deleted automatically Uploads removed within 30 minutes

Drag and drop your GIF images here

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

Up to 20 MB per file Batch ready

65
Smaller file More detail
Presets:

Higher keeps more detail; lower makes a smaller file. Applies to images you add after changing it.

Step by step

How to convert GIF to AVIF in 3 steps

  1. Check whether your GIF is animated

    If it is and you want to keep that, GIF to WebP is the right tool.

  2. Add your GIF and adjust quality if you like

  3. Download your AVIF

Format comparison

GIF vs AVIF

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

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

Why a flat graphic shrinks so much

AVIF comes from AV1, a video codec, and it is extremely good at describing large regions of smooth or uniform colour — it can represent a flat area with almost no data at all. A GIF of a chart, a logo or an interface is mostly flat areas. Measured: a 3.5 KB diagram became a 599-byte AVIF.

Transparency comes across too, and better than it went in: AVIF supports full partial transparency, so it can store exactly the on-or-off transparency the GIF had without compromise.

Why the quality setting matters so much for photo-GIFs

This is the surprising one. A photograph saved as a GIF has been squeezed into 256 colours, usually by dithering — scattering pixels of neighbouring colours so the eye averages them into shades that are not really present.

Dithering is, deliberately, noise. A fine random-looking pattern of dots is the hardest thing there is for a modern compressor, because modern compressors work by predicting what comes next, and noise is unpredictable by design. At a high quality setting AVIF faithfully preserves that dot pattern, and it costs a lot; at a lower one it smooths the dots away.

So the setting makes an enormous difference. Measured on a 107 KB photo-GIF:

  • Quality 90 — 94 KB, only 12% smaller. The dither survives, expensively.
  • Quality 80 — 45 KB, 58% smaller.
  • Quality 65, the default — 33 KB, 69% smaller.
  • Quality 40 — 14 KB, 87% smaller.

The flat diagram, by contrast, came out between 599 and 628 bytes at every one of those settings: there is no noise for the setting to act on. It is one of the few cases where lower quality can make an image look better, too — the dithering was the ugly part.

Animation is not kept

AVIF can hold animation, so it is reasonable to expect a GIF animation to survive. With this tool it does not: a single frame is converted, and when your GIF has more than one the tool counts them and says so.

For animation, use GIF to WebP, which keeps every frame and its timing, and is supported in every current browser.

Quality

Quality and file size

AVIF's quality scale does not behave like JPEG's — lower numbers are far less damaging than they look, and a setting that would ruin a JPEG is often fine as AVIF.

  • For graphics: 60–75. Flat colour and edges stay clean well below the numbers you would use for JPEG.
  • For dithered photo-GIFs: try 40–55. The smoothing that lower quality introduces removes dither noise, which both shrinks the file and often improves how it looks.

Pixel art

One exception worth knowing: pixel art — sprites, retro graphics, icons drawn pixel by pixel — depends on every pixel being exactly right, and any lossy format softens the edges of those tiny squares. For pixel art, use PNG, which keeps each pixel precisely.

Browser support

Every current major browser displays AVIF — Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. Outside browsers support is still patchy: some image viewers, office software and older phones will not open it. For a website that does not matter; for sending a file to someone, PNG or WebP is safer.

Replacing old GIFs on a website

The most useful reason to do this is modernising a site that still serves static GIFs: logos, icons, diagrams, buttons, decorations from another era. Those are exactly the images AVIF shrinks most, and the saving across a whole site adds up to real page-weight.

If some of those GIFs animate, split the job: animated ones through GIF to WebP, still ones through this tool.

AVIF or WebP?

  • AVIF — smallest files, especially for flat graphics. One frame only here.
  • WebP — slightly larger, but keeps animation, encodes much faster, and opens in more software outside browsers.

For still graphics on a modern site, AVIF. For anything animated, or where compatibility matters more than the last few kilobytes, WebP.

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

GIF to AVIF: frequently asked questions

Will my animated GIF stay animated?

No — this conversion keeps a single frame, and the tool tells you when your GIF had more. AVIF can hold animation, but this tool does not produce animated AVIF. Use GIF to WebP, which keeps every frame and its timing and plays in every current browser.

Why did my GIF barely get smaller?

Your quality setting is probably high and the GIF is a dithered photograph. Dithering scatters dots of nearby colours to fake shades GIF cannot store, and preserving that deliberately noise-like pattern is expensive. Measured on a photo-GIF: only 12% smaller at quality 90, but 69% at 65 and 87% at 40. Flat graphics shrink about 83% regardless of the setting.

Can a lower quality setting really look better?

For dithered photo-GIFs, often yes. The dot pattern was the ugly part, and a lower setting lets AVIF smooth it into something closer to the gradients it was imitating. That is a rare case — for most images lower quality only means more loss.

Is transparency kept?

Yes. AVIF supports full partial transparency, so the GIF's on-or-off transparency is stored exactly, with room to spare.

Should I use AVIF for pixel art?

No. Pixel art depends on every pixel being exact, and any lossy format softens the edges of the tiny squares it is built from. Use PNG, which keeps each pixel precisely.

AVIF or WebP for my old GIFs?

AVIF for still graphics on a modern website — it gives the smallest files. WebP for anything animated, since it keeps the animation, and wherever compatibility outside browsers matters more than the last few kilobytes.

Keep going

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