PNG to GIF Converter
A PNG to GIF converter re-encodes a still PNG as a single-frame GIF: the image is redrawn on a canvas, its colours are reduced to a table of at most 256, and pixels that were transparent are mapped to GIF's one transparent entry. Converting a 400x300 logo on this page turned a 6.72 KB PNG into a 3.32 KB GIF with all 81,787 of its transparent pixels still transparent. It handles one still image at a time and does not build an animation out of several PNGs.
Drop your image here
or click to select a file
Supported formats: PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF, BMP
Higher quality = larger file size
Conversion complete!
New file size:
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About PNG to GIF Converter
This page turns a still PNG into a GIF89a file without sending the picture anywhere. Your browser decodes the PNG, redraws it on a canvas, and a JavaScript encoder writes the GIF: it builds a colour table, maps every pixel to an entry in that table, and compresses the result with LZW, the only compression the GIF format defines.
The colour table is where PNG and GIF part company. PNG stores full 24-bit colour and 256 levels of alpha per pixel, while a GIF colour table holds at most 256 entries and can mark exactly one of them as transparent. When the image already has 256 colours or fewer, the converter keeps every one of them and the pixels come back unchanged: an 802x602 screenshot with 222 distinct colours converted here still had exactly 222 afterwards. When it has more, a median-cut pass picks the 256 that suit the image best, which is how a 640x480 photograph with 284,551 distinct colours was reduced.
Transparency survives, but only as an on/off flag. A pixel at least half opaque becomes solid and anything fainter becomes fully clear, so soft shadows and feathered edges gain a hard outline. The tool takes one file at a time and always writes a single frame: it does not assemble several PNGs, or an animated PNG, into an animated GIF.
GIF is not automatically the smaller format. The 400x300 logo above dropped from 6.72 KB to 3.32 KB, but a smooth 900x300 gradient grew from 1.7 KB as a PNG to 111 KB as a GIF, because LZW cannot describe a row whose colour changes at every pixel the way PNG's filters can. If a smaller file is the actual goal rather than the GIF format itself, PNG to JPG or PNG to WebP will usually beat it.
Use Cases
How to use
Drag a .png file into the Drop your image here zone, or click the zone to select one; only PNG files are accepted here.
Verify the preview thumbnail, file name and file size shown beside it, and use Remove to choose a different PNG.
Click Convert to GIF: the PNG is redrawn on a canvas, reduced to a colour table of at most 256 entries and written as a single-frame GIF, all inside your browser.
Look at the Conversion complete! panel for the GIF preview and its New file size, and compare that figure with the original PNG.
Click Download GIF to save the file under the same name with a .gif extension, or Convert Another to start over.
Pro Tips
- The drop zone here accepts PNG only. Hand it a JPG and the page answers "Please select a PNG file" and leaves Convert to GIF greyed out; use the general Image Converter when the source is not a PNG.
- Read the New file size line in the Conversion complete! panel before you keep the result. Photographs and smooth gradients usually grow as GIFs: a 900x300 gradient went from 1.7 KB to 111 KB in this test.
- GIF transparency is one bit, so feathered edges and drop shadows come out jagged. If the PNG has soft edges, flatten it onto the background colour it will sit on before converting.
- GIF does keep transparency, but only fully on or fully off: a pixel at least half opaque is stored as solid, anything fainter disappears. Keep PNG or WebP when you need graded alpha.
- Download GIF keeps the original file name and changes only the extension, so logo.png is saved as logo.gif. Use Remove, or Convert Another after a conversion, to swap files without reloading the page.
Troubleshooting
Convert to GIF stays greyed out and the page says "Please select a PNG file".
This page converts PNG only, so a JPG, WebP or GIF is rejected before anything is read and the button never enables. Use the general Image Converter, or the converter that matches your source format, and check that the file really is a PNG rather than a renamed JPEG.
The GIF is several times larger than the PNG it came from.
That is normal for photographs and smooth gradients. GIF compresses runs of identical pixels and those images have almost none: a 900x300 gradient grew from 1.7 KB to 111 KB in this test. If a smaller file is the goal rather than the GIF format, convert to JPG or WebP instead.
Soft edges or a drop shadow look jagged in the GIF.
GIF stores transparency as a single on/off palette entry, so partly transparent pixels must become either solid or invisible, and the cut falls at half opacity. Flatten the PNG onto the background colour it will be shown against before converting, and the edge stays smooth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. A PNG and a GIF both store a grid of pixels, so the conversion is a re-encode rather than a redraw: the browser decodes the PNG, then writes the same pixels into a GIF colour table. The only things that can be lost are colour depth, because a GIF table holds at most 256 entries, and alpha precision, because GIF transparency is a single on/off entry.
Yes, but only as fully transparent or fully opaque. GIF marks one palette entry as transparent and has no partial alpha, so a pixel at least half opaque in the PNG becomes solid and anything fainter becomes clear. A 400x300 logo converted here kept all 81,787 of its transparent pixels; its anti-aliased edge pixels were pushed to one side or the other.
Only if the PNG uses more than 256 colours. Below that, every colour keeps its own palette entry and the pixels come back byte for byte: an 802x602 screenshot with 222 colours still had exactly 222 after conversion. A photograph is different. One with 284,551 distinct colours was reduced to 256, which shows as banding across skies and other smooth areas.
Sometimes. Flat artwork with few colours usually shrinks: a 6.72 KB logo became a 3.32 KB GIF here. Photographs and gradients usually grow, because GIF's LZW compression cannot describe a row whose colour changes at every pixel, while PNG's filters can. A 1.7 KB gradient PNG came out as a 111 KB GIF. Check the New file size line before keeping the result.
Not here. This converter takes one file at a time and always writes a single-frame GIF, so selecting several PNGs converts only the first. An animation also needs a frame order, a delay for each frame and a loop count, none of which this page asks for. Use a dedicated GIF maker when you want movement rather than a change of format.
Not with this tool. An APNG carries several frames, but the converter draws the image onto a canvas, which yields one still frame, and the GIF it writes contains a single image block with no delay or loop information. You will get a static picture rather than the animation, so an APNG-to-GIF converter that understands frames is the right choice.
PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics, GIF for Graphics Interchange Format, and JPEG for the Joint Photographic Experts Group that defined it. PNG compresses without discarding pixels and stores 256 levels of transparency. GIF is limited to a 256-colour palette with one transparent entry, but can hold several frames. JPEG throws away detail to make photographs small and supports no transparency at all.
No. The file is read by the browser's file reader, drawn on a canvas and encoded to GIF by JavaScript running in the page, so the picture itself never travels over the network. The download link points at a blob held in your own tab's memory, and closing the tab discards it. Only the page and its scripts are loaded from the site.
Both accept GIF uploads, but a file converted here has one frame, so it behaves as a still image rather than an animation. If you wanted movement, this is the wrong tool. If a form, a bot or a theme simply refuses anything that is not a .gif, a single-frame GIF satisfies that requirement while looking exactly like the PNG did.
Yes: no charge, no account, and no watermark on the output. The conversion runs on your own machine, so there is nothing to meter; the practical limits are your browser's memory and your patience. A 400x300 logo took about 40 milliseconds here, a 640x480 photograph about 0.2 seconds, and a 4000x3000 PNG of 19 MB about 1.5 seconds to become a 5.26 MB GIF.