How do I make a GIF from a video?

1. Trim to the moment. GIFs live and die by the loop. Cut the clip to the 2–4 seconds that matter with the video trimmer — shorter loops mean smaller files and sharper colors.
2. Convert with a real palette. Drop the trimmed clip on Video to GIF. It uses two-pass palette generation (the trick behind sharp GIFs) instead of the banded, dithered mess naive converters produce.
3. Size it for the destination. Discord emoji? Resize to 128×128 and fit under 256 KB. Chat embed? 320 px wide is plenty. The GIF resizer and byte-target compressor pages finish the job.

A 3-second clip becomes a shareable GIF in under a minute. If the destination accepts video, consider keeping it MP4 — 5-20× smaller for the same clip.

Why do most video-to-GIF conversions look bad?

GIF is limited to 256 colors per palette. Cheap converters use one generic palette, producing banding and dirty gradients. The two-pass approach scans your actual footage first, builds a palette from it, then encodes — the same frames, visibly cleaner. Frame rate matters too: 12 fps reads as smooth in a loop; 30 fps just triples the file.

GIF or MP4 — which should you actually use?

GIF wins where autoplay-looping images are expected: Discord emoji and stickers, README files, forums. MP4 wins everywhere else — Twitter/X, WhatsApp, iMessage all loop videos natively at a fraction of the size. Rule of thumb: if the platform shows a play button, send MP4.