How do I download a GIF file?

Recently, when I was trying to download a gif file from Giphy, I noticed that when I went directly to the file, https://media.giphy.com/media/14kdiJUblbWBXy/giphy.gif for example, that it was actually loading a web page instead of the gif file.

Now, on this page, you could choose to alternative/right click on the image and then click “Save Image”. But, this will download the image with a .webp extension. From there, you can choose to change the extension to .gif if you’d like. But, I’ll be honest and tell you that I didn’t consider switching the extension at first. So, I dug further.

I figured that Giphy was probably detecting that based on who/where the request was coming from, so I tried downloading the gif file by running a cURL command. This worked, but it’s not convenient to have to open up a terminal window to run a cURL command.

Luckily, a kind person left a very helpful comment below with an even simpler approach, which I think is the simplest approach overall.

Simple approach

When we go to a standard Giphy source URL, like https://media.giphy.com/media/14kdiJUblbWBXy/giphy.gif, a web page is loaded instead of the gif that we want. Now, the only thing we have to change for the actual gif to load is to change media.giphy.com to i.giphy.com.

So, if we take the above example, we could load the actual gif by going to https://i.giphy.com/media/14kdiJUblbWBXy/giphy.gif

From here, we can alternate/right click to download the gif with the correct extension and go on about our day.

Downloading via cURL

curl https://media.giphy.com/media/KXgJsSeOfvSgg/giphy.gif --output ~/Desktop/download.gif

This resulted in the actual gif file that I wanted being placed on my Desktop as download.gif.

You’ve probably come across GIF more than once today as you scrolled across your social media feed. Well, these animated images are just everywhere! There seems to be a hype in using GIFs all over social media, not only in public posts and comments, but also in DMs (Direct Messages). Not only are they cute, but also fun to use. They are very popular that there’s a GIF for almost every emotion, occasion, celebration, reaction – name it and the web has it!

Animated GIFs can find their way onto forums, email signatures, Facebook, Instagram, websites and all other platforms that supports .gif files. If you want to save animated GIFs to your computer and use them online, this article will show you how.

What’s in a GIF?

First off, just what is a GIF? GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format.  The concept was developed by a team of computer scientists led by Steve Wilhite in 1987, which means that they are not quite new. GIFs have been popular on the web because of its wide portability between applications and operating systems.

GIF is an 8-bit format that supports up to 256 colors using RGB. Its ability to support animation makes it so popular. However, the limitation in colors make GIFs less suitable for reproducing color photos. It is just suitable for use in simpler graphics. GIFs are also unable to support audio, unlike video files.

An animated GIF contains several images that are used as frames to create the animation. This animation loops continuously to provide the effect.

Save animated GIFs to your computer

If you see a GIF online that you like and decide that you want to keep it, you can download the GIF to your computer or phone just as you would download an image file.

Follow these simple steps listed below to download an animated GIF into your computer.

1. Right click on the animated GIF that you want to download.
2. Select ‘Save Image As’.
3. Select the location where you want to save your image, keeping the file format as .gif.
4. Click ‘Save’.
   

These steps should work the same in most desktop browsers. And there you have it! You can use your downloaded  GIFs wherever you please.  As .gif files are self-contained, they can be saved, uploaded, embedded in emails that use HTML, used in blog posts, on web pages or wherever you like. Pretty much every online platform today supports them.

How to create animated GIFs

Creating your own animated GIFs is actually pretty straightforward. An animated GIF is a series of static images played back just like a cartoon. To create an animated GIF you need to create that series of images in 8-bit, 256 colors and combine them into an animation.

You can use an online tool such as Giphy to create animated GIFs, or you can use Photoshop or other image editor. Adobe has a good guide to creating animated GIFs on its website. This link focuses on Photoshop, of course, but the principles are the same whatever graphics program you use.

Use animated GIFs in WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms in the world, powering millions of websites – so it’s a good place to check that your GIF is working. Some WordPress installations will show the first image but not the animation.

Follow these simple steps to add animated GIFs in WordPress.

1. Select Add Media in the post or page you want the GIF to feature.
2. Select Upload Files. You can choose Drop Files to Upload or Select Files from your computer.
3. Select the file you want to add and press Insert into post.
4. Check that the animation plays in the post window. Then select Preview above Publish to check that the animation will play.

Use animated GIFs on Facebook

Facebook is full of images and GIFs play a significant part in that number. Some are cute, some are clever and some are just hilarious. Here’s how to add animated GIFs on your Facebook posts.

1. Go to the status box in your Facebook profile.
2. Click the GIF icon to search for a GIF from the GIF library.
3. Once you select a GIF, it will automatically appear on your post box.
4. Click post.

There was a time when Facebook didn’t play nicely with GIFs, and you had to host them somewhere else. Fortunately those days are gone, and now you can directly upload your GIFs to Facebook just as you can everywhere else.

Got any neat tips or tricks to use GIFs? Share them with us in the comments!

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