What's the fastest way to make a GIF smaller?

Reduce the width first, then the frame rate, then the color count. Each cut lowers the size, and the preview shows the result instantly.

Will it still look smooth?

Small drops in fps and colors are barely noticeable. The tool lets you balance size against smoothness until it fits Discord's limit.

Can I make a GIF small enough for a Discord emoji?

Animated emoji must be under 256 KB, which usually means a width around 128 pixels, a low frame rate and few colours. Short loops of one or two seconds are the only ones that fit comfortably.

Should I trim the GIF before compressing it?

If the clip is longer than it needs to be, yes. Every frame costs the same, so cutting a ten-second GIF to four seconds saves more than any setting here. Trim in the tool that made it, then compress.

Compress a GIF for Discord

Shrink a GIF to fit Discord's upload limit — free, in your browser.

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drop a heavy GIF — optimized on your device for Discord/Slack

Discord's attachment limit for an account without a subscription is 20 MB (it was 10 MB until August 2026), and animated GIFs blow through it faster than any other file type, because the GIF format compresses poorly compared with video. A ten-second screen recording saved as a GIF at full resolution and 30 frames per second lands at 20 or 30 MB. Animated emoji have an even tighter budget of 256 KB. This page gives you the three controls that decide a GIF's weight and shows the resulting size after each change, so you can stop the moment the number is below the line.

Start with width. Discord shows most GIFs in a chat column that is a few hundred pixels wide anyway, so a 1200-pixel recording gains nothing from its extra pixels, and width counts twice: half as wide means about a quarter of the pixels in every frame. Frame rate comes next: dropping from 30 to 15 frames per second halves the file and is barely noticeable on screen recordings, though fast action gets a little steppy. Reduce colours last, since a cut from 256 to 64 colours is invisible on cartoons but adds visible banding to gradients and video footage. All of this happens on your device; the trade is that each adjustment re-processes the whole GIF, which takes a moment on a long clip.

More sizes & options

GIF Compressor — all options

Frequently asked questions

What's the fastest way to make a GIF smaller?: Reduce the width first, then the frame rate, then the color count. Each cut lowers the size, and the preview shows the result instantly.
Will it still look smooth?: Small drops in fps and colors are barely noticeable. The tool lets you balance size against smoothness until it fits Discord's limit.
Can I make a GIF small enough for a Discord emoji?: Animated emoji must be under 256 KB, which usually means a width around 128 pixels, a low frame rate and few colours. Short loops of one or two seconds are the only ones that fit comfortably.
Should I trim the GIF before compressing it?: If the clip is longer than it needs to be, yes. Every frame costs the same, so cutting a ten-second GIF to four seconds saves more than any setting here. Trim in the tool that made it, then compress.

Guides

How to compress a video for Discord (under 20 MB) without a watermark Discord's free upload limit is 20 MB since August 2026. Here is what that limit actually allows, how to get a clip under it without turning it into mush, and why you do not need an app or a server to do it.

Related tools

🔒 Your files are processed on your device. This tool runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.