PNG to GIF

PNG to GIF Converter

Convert PNG images to GIF format in your browser, with transparency preserved where GIF allows it. The converter checks how many distinct colors your image uses: if there are 256 or fewer, it writes them exactly, so logos, icons, and pixel art convert without any loss. Richer images get an optimized palette and optional dithering.

PNG and GIF compared

Both formats are lossless for the colors they can store, and both use dictionary-based compression — DEFLATE for PNG, LZW for GIF. The big differences are color depth and transparency. PNG stores up to 16 million colors with 256 levels of transparency per pixel; GIF stores a palette of up to 256 colors with one optional "invisible" entry. GIF's advantage is universal support for animation and very old software.

Why convert to GIF?

• Platforms that only animate or accept GIFs, such as some chat apps, forums, and email signature editors.
• Building animation frames: convert each PNG frame, then combine them in an animation tool.
• Retro and pixel-art projects where an indexed palette is part of the style.
• Legacy systems — older CMSs, LED controllers, and kiosks that predate PNG support.

Handling transparency well

GIF transparency is binary. The converter treats pixels with alpha below 50% as transparent and everything else as opaque. For images with soft drop shadows or feathered edges, results look best when you disable Keep transparency and choose a background color that matches the destination, which blends edges smoothly before quantizing.

The encoder writes a standard GIF89a file with a graphic control extension for the transparent index. To go back to PNG, use GIF to PNG; for photos, PNG to JPG produces smaller files.