HEIC to GIF Converter

Convert HEIC to GIF Online

Turn the HEIC photos an iPhone writes into GIFs — a single photo becomes a still GIF, and several photos uploaded together become one animated GIF. GIF is a 256-colour format from 1987, so this page is upfront about what a modern camera photo loses on the way in and which two controls (resolution and palette size) decide whether the result is a tidy 200 KB loop or an unshareable 40 MB one.

How to Convert HEIC to GIF

1. Upload Your HEIC Photos: Drag the .heic files onto the page or click "Add Files". Upload one photo for a still GIF, or several to build an animation.
2. Choose Combine? and a Framerate: With more than one photo, "Single animation" (the default) joins them into one GIF and the Framerate dropdown sets the pace — 10 FPS unless you change it. "Individual files" gives you a separate GIF per photo.
3. Set Image Resolution and Colors: Both live under File Compression → Custom. Image resolution defaults to Keep original; Preset Resolutions goes all the way down to 16p for tiny badges. Colors is optional — switch it to "By Color Reduction + Dither" to shrink the palette below the full 256.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the .gif. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers and deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark.

One Photo or Several: What You Get

When photos of different sizes are combined, every frame is placed on a shared canvas sized to the largest width and height in the set, centred and letterboxed rather than cropped, so no part of any photo is cut off.

Colour and Size: The Two Controls That Matter

GIF stores at most 256 colours per frame and compresses with LZW, an algorithm designed for flat graphics. A photograph is the opposite of flat, so a full-resolution photo turned into a GIF is routinely larger than the HEIC it came from. Resolution is the blunt instrument; palette size is the fine one.

If the GIF is still too heavy after that, drop the frame size under Image resolution (File Compression → Custom) first — halving the width and height removes about three-quarters of the pixels — and then run the result through GIF compression for a final pass.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will my single photo animate?

No. One photo produces one still frame, and a still GIF is a perfectly valid GIF — it just does not move. Animation needs multiple images, so upload several HEIC files together and leave Combine? on "Single animation" to get a moving GIF. If your photo came from a Live Photo, the motion is not in the .heic at all: iOS stores it in a separate .MOV file exported alongside the photo, and that is the file to convert if you want the movement.

Why do the colours look banded compared with the original?

Because GIF allows a maximum of 256 colours per frame, while your HEIC holds a full-colour image — 8-bit per channel for ordinary captures and 10-bit for HDR. Squeezing millions of colours into 256 means picking a palette and dithering the rest, which is visible first in smooth gradients: skies, skin, out-of-focus backgrounds. It is a property of the format, not of the conversion. When colour fidelity matters, HEIC to PNG or HEIC to JPG is the right target.

Why is the GIF larger than the HEIC I started with?

HEIC compresses photographs with HEVC, one of the most efficient image codecs in wide use, and typically lands at about half the size of the equivalent JPEG. GIF compresses with LZW, which was built for logos and line art and does badly on photographic detail. A 3 MB HEIC becoming a 20 MB GIF at full resolution is normal. Lower the resolution, cut the palette, or pick a different format if size matters.

How do I get the GIF under a few hundred kilobytes?

Work in this order. Under File Compression → Custom, set Image resolution to a Preset Resolution — 480p or 360p is plenty for most GIF uses — since pixel count dominates everything else. Then set Colors to "By Color Reduction + Dither" and try 128 or 64. If you are building an animation, drop the Framerate: fewer frames per second means fewer frames overall for the same clip. Finally, pass the output through GIF compression if it is still marginal.

Can I control how fast the animation plays?

Yes, through the Framerate dropdown, which starts at 10 FPS and ranges from 1 FPS (a slideshow) to 50 FPS. It sets the timing of the GIF our converter builds, so a set of eight photos at 10 FPS runs for under a second, while the same eight at 2 FPS run for four seconds. The control only affects multi-photo animations — with a single still photo there is nothing to time.

Does GIF keep transparency from a HEIC?

It keeps it, but only in a crude form. GIF transparency is a single palette entry: each pixel is either fully transparent or fully opaque, with nothing in between. A HEIC that carries a genuine alpha channel with soft edges will come out with those edges hardened, often with a visible fringe. If you need smooth transparency, PNG preserves the full alpha channel instead.

What order will the frames appear in?

The order you uploaded them. There is no sorting or renaming step, so drop the files in the sequence you want them to play, or rename them beforehand if your file picker returns them alphabetically. If a frame looks out of place, the fastest fix is to reorder the upload and convert again rather than editing the GIF afterwards.

Is GIF the right way to share an iPhone photo?

Rarely. For a single photo, JPG is smaller and looks better everywhere, and PNG is the choice when you need lossless or transparency. GIF is worth it for short looping animations in places that still demand the format — forum posts, some chat clients, old CMS uploaders. If you want a short looping video from photos, HEIC to MP4 produces a far smaller file with full colour.

What happens to my photos after the conversion?

They are uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers and deleted automatically after a few hours, along with the GIFs made from them. Nothing is published or shared, no account is needed, and no watermark is added.