Convert MOV to GIF

Live Photos make ready-made GIFs

A Live Photo is a still picture plus about three seconds of video. Copied to a Windows PC, the video half arrives as its own short MOV with the same number as the photo: IMG_1234.MOV beside IMG_1234.HEIC or IMG_1234.JPG. Those few seconds are just the length a GIF should be, so a folder of Live Photos is a folder of GIFs waiting to happen.

Drop that folder on the converter. It looks through it and the folders inside, picks out the MOVs and ignores the photos. Use Balanced for a small file or High for a sharper one, and every Live Photo becomes a looping animation in one batch. Live Photo MOVs carry sound as well, which a GIF leaves out, and the photos themselves stay exactly as they were.

Vertical clips and sizes

Most iPhone clips are filmed upright. Octoolo reads the rotation the phone stored, so the animation stands the right way, and its presets limit the shorter side, which for a vertical clip is the width:

4K clips come down the same way, since only the shorter side counts. WebP at Balanced and Small stops at 480 and 360 pixels on that side, and As it is keeps the clip's full size, which for a 4K phone video makes a very large file.

HEVC clips without extra software

An iPhone set to High Efficiency records HEVC video, which Windows only plays with Microsoft's HEVC Video Extensions installed. Octoolo can do without them: FFmpeg decodes HEVC itself, so a clip that Windows' own apps may refuse to play still becomes a GIF. Clips shot on Most Compatible are H.264 and convert the same way. The list shows a frame, the length and the picture size of every clip, HEVC or not, so you can tell them apart before you start.

Any frame rate works too. A clip filmed at 60 frames a second is sampled down to the preset's rate, 15, 12 or 10 frames a second for a GIF at High, Balanced and Small, so smooth phone footage does not make a heavier GIF than ordinary footage.

If you also want the whole clip as a video any PC can play, HEVC to MP4 turns it into H.264, and MOV to MP4 covers every other MOV.

When a clip needs a touch first

The converter takes each clip whole. For a shorter loop, a caption across the bottom, or a clip that was filmed sideways by mistake, open it in the Video Editor instead: trim it, add text, turn it a quarter at a time with Turn left or Turn right, then choose GIF in Export. The video to GIF guide walks through it. For a clip that only needs to be shorter, the video trimmer does it before you convert.

The editor can also make a square GIF, the shape chats and profile pages like. With nothing selected, pick Square as the video's shape, then select the clip, set In the frame to Fill, cut edges, and use Zoom and Left and right until the subject sits where you want it. Its GIF export caps the width at 640 pixels and the rate at 15 frames a second, and the result loops forever like the converter's.