How to change the mb size of a gif

[theyerster456]

Looking to post a gif on twitter, but it says the file size is too big any ideas? 

[Peru Bob]

Decrease the bit rate when exporting.

[theyerster456]

When I export as an animated gif there is no option to decrease the bit rate? Using adobe premiere pro.

[Jeff Bugbee]

Gifs don't really have bitrates. The best way I've found to reduce size is to decrease the resolution and use a lower frame rate.

[theyerster456]

Where do I decrease the resolution? and how do I lower the frame rate? I just want it 15mb or under and every time I render it out it's 24-30mb. 

Thanks

[Conrad C]

I have not seen a reliable way to reduce file size of an animated GIF when exporting directly from Premiere Pro or Adobe Media Encoder. They just don’t provide enough detailed control over animated GIF options. All they offer is just one Quality slider.

If that Quality slider doesn’t reduce the size enough, try these:

• Reduce the duration.
• Reduce the frame size (pixel dimensions).
• Reduce the frame rate.

These can all be done in the Export Settings dialog box for Premiere Pro or Media Encoder.

If the animated GIF still isn’t small enough, you have exhausted what the Adobe video applications can do here, so you have to get it done in Photoshop:

1. Export as a regular video file.
2. Open that in Photoshop.*
3. Open the Timeline panel (Window > Timeline), and in the Timeline panel menu, choose Set Timeline Frame Rate. Lower that as far as you can stand.
4. Choose File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy).
5. Set the export file type to GIF. That displays the GIF optimization controls.
6. Now apply standard GIF optimization techniques, which I won’t go into in detail but are things like:

• Reduce the number of colors in the GIF palette. Lock important colors if needed.
• Reduce the amount of dithering.
• Reduce the frame size (pixel dimensions).

Watch the estimated file size in the bottom left corner to see which changes reduce the file size the most.

Making adjustments may be slow because Save for Web (Legacy) is very old code. But for now, this is the only good place to properly optimize an animated GIF in Adobe software, that I know of.

If these changes compromise the quality of the video too much, you have run into the limitations of the creaky old 1990s animated GIF format, which was never designed for continuous tone video. If nothing gets the file size down far enough, that means you should post it somewhere as a normal video, and embed that into the Twitter post.

*(Edit November 2021) If you are using an Apple Silicon Mac, Photoshop video features are not yet native on Apple Silicon. You must restart Photoshop in the Rosetta translation environment. Quit Photoshop, select it in the Finder, choose File > Get Info, enable Open in Rosetta, and start Photoshop.

[Prashant5C0E]

Thanks Conrad C,

Your solution works. Ain't no way you can reduce the file size in Adobe Media Encoder effectively. I exported it is a .mp4 and used Photoshop to convert it to a smaller .gif using the save for web(legacy) format. Danke!

[Meta5ED0]

Huge props for replying that this solution worked. I will try it myself. Thanks!

[Michael21900641ez09]

Thank you so much! Way easier and quicker than trying to get small files out of AME. 🙂

[Conrad C]

If you are using a Mac, another solution that has helped me is the Gifski app.

It has more control than Premiere Pro or Adobe Media Encoder and is able to create much smaller animated GIF files, though it has less control than Save for Web (Legacy) in Photoshop.