How long can a GIF last?
Uploads are limited to 15 seconds, although we recommend no more than 6 seconds. Uploads are limited to 100MB, although we recommend 8MB or less. Source video resolution should be 720p max, but we recommend you keep it at 480p. Keep in mind media will appear mostly on small screens or smaller messaging windows.
The very first GIF was of a clip art airplane soaring through a pixelated sky. Steve Wilhite, inventor of the GIF file, poses with an award backstage at the 17th Annual Webby Awards at Cipriani Wall Street on May 21, 2013 in New York City. Initially, GIFs were still images.
A GIF (Graphical Interchange Format) is an image format invented in 1987 by Steve Wilhite, a US software writer who was looking for a way to animate images in the smallest file size. In short, GIFs are a series of images or soundless video that will loop continuously and doesn't require anyone to press play.
Occasionally people use the . gif format as image instead of using it for the animation. A gif usually is 20 seconds long at 24 fps. Any longer may need html 5 or other kind of program to compress.
Most GIFs look small and low resolution, like the one above. It's hard to make a series of moving images about the same file size as just one static image, like a JPEG. And since they get shared so often, the same video gets compressed and looks worse each time it gets saved and re-uploaded.