How to open .GIF files (animated GIFs) on Android, Windows and Linux

You save a reaction clip from a chat or a website and end up with a .gif file, or with something that ought to be a GIF and turns out to be a video. GIF is one of the oldest image formats still in daily use, and it shows its age: few colours, big files, and plenty of apps that quietly swap it for something else.

Folders opens GIF files in its image viewer on Android, Windows and Linux, and converts them to and from other image formats. It’s free and works offline. Here’s how, and how to make sense of the odd cases.

What is a .GIF file?

GIF, the Graphics Interchange Format, was introduced by CompuServe in 1987. A 1989 revision, GIF89a, added the features it’s known for today: animation and transparency. How to say it is still argued over; its creator, Steve Wilhite, said “jif”.

A GIF is built from:

• A palette of up to 256 colours for each frame. Fine for cartoons, logos and pixel art; photos come out grainy or banded, because missing shades are faked with patterns of dots (dithering).
• Lossless compression (LZW) of those colour numbers. No blocky JPEG artefacts, but no help with photo-like scenes either.
• On-or-off transparency. A pixel is either fully see-through or fully solid, with nothing in between. Soft edges can’t fade out, which is why a GIF logo can show a jagged light fringe on a dark page.
• Frames with delays and a loop count. That’s all an animated GIF is: a series of pictures shown one after another.

Because GIF has no real video compression, an animated GIF is a very inefficient way to store a clip. A few seconds can run to several megabytes; the same clip as an MP4 or an animated WebP is usually a fraction of that.

When a GIF isn’t a GIF

Many apps don’t keep GIFs as GIFs. WhatsApp, for instance, turns them into short MP4 videos, and GIF websites often hand out the same clip as MP4 or WebP. So if your “GIF” ends in .mp4, it’s a video: see how to open MP4 files. If it ends in .webp, see the WebP guide.

How to open a .GIF file with Folders

Android

1. Install Folders from the download page and let it access your files.
2. Look in Download for GIFs saved from a browser. Chat apps keep their own folders; our guide to where WhatsApp and Telegram save files shows where to look.
3. Tap the GIF. From a browser’s downloads list or another file app, you can also choose Open with → Folders.

Windows and Linux

1. Open Folders, go to the GIF and double-click it.
2. On Windows, right-click a GIF in File Explorer and pick Open with → Folders; the installer adds Folders to that menu.

What you can do with a GIF in Folders

• Look at it closely. Zoom in on pixel art or a tiny graphic, and move between the images in the folder by swiping or with the arrow keys.
• Copy all text copies the words Folders recognises in the picture, such as a meme’s caption.
• Convert a GIF to something else. Select it and choose Convert to ▸ PNG for a lossless copy, or JPEG, WebP, AVIF (on Windows and Linux), HEIC, TIFF, BMP, ICO or TGA. Formats such as JPEG and BMP hold a single picture, so a JPEG or BMP made from an animated GIF can’t move.
• Make a GIF. Select photos or graphics and choose Convert to ▸ GIF for an old forum, an email signature or software that only takes GIF. Expect photos to look grainy: the 256-colour limit applies to everything that becomes a GIF.
• Resize… makes smaller copies, and Details, Share and Open with another app are there too.

To step through an animation frame by frame or change single frames, use GIMP, which opens each frame as a layer.

Other ways to open .GIF files

• Any web browser plays animated GIFs: drag the file into a tab.
• Windows: the Photos app. Linux: most desktop image viewers.
• Android: Google Photos or the phone’s Gallery.
• GIMP (free) to edit frames and timing.

Problems opening a .GIF file?

It doesn’t move. Not every GIF is animated, and some apps and editors show only the first frame of the ones that are. A web browser plays any animated GIF.

The colours look blotchy or speckled. That’s the 256-colour palette, fixed when the GIF was made. Converting it to PNG or JPEG keeps it exactly as it looks; the missing colours don’t come back.

It’s enormous. Long or large GIFs balloon quickly. For sending, a video or an animated WebP is far smaller.

Questions people ask

Can I open a .GIF file on Android? Yes. Folders opens GIFs from any folder on the phone, with no account and no internet.

Where are the GIFs I saved from WhatsApp? WhatsApp keeps them as MP4 videos in its own media folders, not as .gif files. The chat apps guide linked above shows where they are.

How do I convert a GIF to MP4? Folders converts images, not video, so use a video tool such as FFmpeg (free, on Windows and Linux) or an online converter. The MP4 will be far smaller than the GIF.

GIF vs PNG: what’s the difference? Both are lossless, but PNG has millions of colours and smooth transparency, while GIF is limited to 256 colours and on-or-off transparency. GIF’s strength is animation that plays almost everywhere; for still images, PNG is the better choice.

For still graphics, see the PNG guide, or browse all 382 file types Folders opens.