Drop an animated GIF into the box above and download it as an animated PNG (APNG) with the same frames, timing and loop. Several GIFs at once are fine, and the whole conversion happens in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no signup or watermark.
GIF or APNG: when to use which
GIF has been the web's animation format for decades, and nearly everything plays it. Its limits come from that age:
- At most 256 colors in each frame.
- Transparency that is either on or off, so edges over a background look jagged.
APNG is the animated version of PNG. It can store millions of colors and partly transparent pixels, and its compression is lossless. The current PNG standard includes it, and every major browser plays it.
Converting a GIF to APNG keeps exactly what the GIF had. It doesn't add colors or soften edges the GIF never stored. Convert when:
- An app or website asks for APNG, for example for animated stickers or emoji, and your animation is a GIF.
- You work with PNG files and want the animation in the same format as the rest.
- The APNG is smaller. Flat-color animations often shrink. Check the file sizes in the list after converting.
Keep the GIF when the animation must play everywhere: programs that don't support APNG show only its first frame.
How the conversion works
Your browser decodes the GIF frame by frame and rebuilds each one exactly as the GIF shows it, including the GIF's own rules for clearing or keeping the previous frame. The APNG then stores:
- The first frame whole.
- For each later frame, only the rectangle that changed, drawn over the frame before. That is what keeps files small when only part of the picture moves.
- The delays and the loop count. A GIF set to play forever loops forever; one that plays three times plays three times.
When the whole animation uses 256 colors or fewer, which is true of most GIFs, the APNG stores those exact colors as a palette. Otherwise it stores full color, which is lossless but larger. A GIF of up to 20 megapixels across all its frames keeps every frame; beyond that, the row says so and saves the first frame.
Crop, resize and file size applies the same crop and size to every frame. A still image dropped here becomes an ordinary PNG, since one frame has nothing to animate.
Animated WebP to APNG
Animated WebP files work here too. Chrome, Edge and Firefox read every frame of an animated WebP. Safari currently reads only the first frame, and the row says so.
Related tools
- GIF to PNG saves a GIF's first frame, or every frame as separate PNG files in a ZIP.
- The GIF compressor makes a GIF smaller while keeping it a GIF.
- The GIF maker builds an animated GIF from separate pictures.
- To turn an APNG back into an animated GIF, use the image to GIF converter.
Frequently asked questions
What is an APNG?
An APNG is an animated PNG: a PNG file that holds a whole animation. It is part of the PNG standard, and Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari and Opera all play it. Programs that don't support the animation show its first frame as an ordinary picture.
Will the APNG look different from my GIF?
No. Every frame is rebuilt exactly as the GIF shows it, pixel for pixel, with the same delays and loop count. A GIF frame stored with a delay of 0 or 1 hundredths of a second plays for a tenth of a second in browsers, so the APNG stores that tenth and plays the same.
Is an APNG smaller than a GIF?
It depends on the animation. In our tests, animations with flat colors shrank, for example our 20-frame sample from 13.2 KB to 10–11 KB, depending on the browser's compression. A dithered, photo-like GIF whose frames each had their own 256 colors doubled, because an APNG keeps one set of colors for the whole animation.
Why does the file end in .png?
An APNG is a PNG file, so .png is its usual name and it opens everywhere a PNG does. If an app asks specifically for an .apng file, renaming it is fine.
Does converting add colors or smoother transparency?
No. A GIF has at most 256 colors in each frame and on-or-off transparency, and the APNG keeps exactly those. APNG can hold millions of colors and soft edges, but only when the animation it is made from has them.
Can I turn an APNG back into a GIF?
Yes. The image to GIF converter keeps an APNG's animation in Chrome, Edge and Firefox. Safari reads only its first frame there.