Want to get in on the GIF-making craze and share your own custom GIFs with your social media followers? GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format, and it's basically a little excerpt of a video clip or an animation, sometimes with a text overlay. Social media users love GIFs, as they seem to convey emotions better than simple text or photos. You can create your own GIFs with easy-to-use iPhone apps.
Here are the best GIF apps for iPhone
Using an app to make your custom GIF is so easy! You can either use a GIF screen recorder or make a GIF from your own videos or photos. Here are some of the best GIF apps for iPhone.
- Video to GIF
- Gif Maker
- Loop Video & GIF Maker
- ImgPlay - GIF Maker
- Motion Stills
- Giphy Cam
- Workflow by Apple
- Go Record: Screen Recorder
The best apps to make GIFs from videos
If you have a short video — or are willing to shoot one — for your custom GIF, then you're already one step closer to GIF stardom. Now all you need is the perfect app to finish the job. Try these three GIF video apps to simplify the task.
Video to GIF: GIF maker from video
With Video to GIF, you can convert local and iCloud videos to GIFs, shoot new videos for your GIFs, or even use your YouTube URL to convert a YouTube video to a GIF. You can slow down or speed up your video, play it in reverse, add stickers and text, and save it to your Camera Roll as a GIF file or a video.
GIF Maker: No-nonsense GIF app for iPhone
GIF Maker allows you to make GIFs from videos, photos, or live photos. Simply open the app, choose a photo or video from your Camera Roll, trim it to your liking, and start editing. With GIF Maker, you can add beautiful custom filters, speed up your video, and add text and stickers. When you're finished, your GIF can be shared on social media, sent as a text message, or saved to your Camera Roll.
Loop Video & GIF Maker: Easy GIF Maker app
You can’t get much quicker or easier than Loop Video & GIF Maker. Simply select a video, choose how long you want your loop to be, and decide whether you want 1x or 2x normal speed. That’s it! Once your loop video has been created, you can download it to your Camera Roll or share it on Facebook.
The best GIF makers to create GIFs from photos
No need to shoot elaborate videos just to create a GIF. You can use photos, too! The following GIF makers are perfect for using photos from your Camera Roll.
Motion Stills: Handy GIF editor
This app is not just for GIF creation. Motion Stills allows you to turn any live photo on your iPhone into a cinematic GIF or even a video collage. You can capture motion stills from inside the app, export collages as GIFs, and instantly share them using your favorite messaging app. While the features in Motion Stills are limited, the app is very quick and easy to use.
Motion Stills on the App Store
ImgPlay - GIF Maker: Best GIF app for photos
This free GIF creator is a great way to turn your regular or live photos into a GIF without spending a lot of time. It works best when you have a sequence of photos that ImgPlay can stitch together to create your GIF, but live photos work really well too.
Once you have chosen your photos, you can speed them up or slow them down, crop them to your desired size, and add text and filters. It takes under a minute to create your custom GIF from your photos.
Giphy Cam: The best GIF camera
Some of the coolest things about Giphy Cam are all the fun filters and stickers you can use to make your GIFs stand out. The interface is bright and bold, and it's really easy to use. Just turn on your camera, take a series of photos, and let Giphy Cam do the rest. Once you have created your GIF, you can share it via text, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, or Instagram. You can also save it to your Camera Roll.
The best GIF screen recorder apps
In addition to creating GIFs from your own photos and videos, you can also use screen recorders to capture whatever is on your phone, from TV shows and movies to video games and text messages. Here are some great GIF screen recorder apps.
Shrotcuts by Apple: Not just for professionals
Shortcuts wasn’t created so that you could make GIFs with a simple touch of your screen, but it's a clever way to get it done. Shortcuts is basically a shortcut app, and it integrates with all of your favorite iPhone apps to make tasks easier. It can be launched from the widget or simply by asking Siri.
With the app, you can work through the steps of creating your GIF using your photos and videos once, then add a shortcut widget to your home screen. Now you can create a GIF whenever the mood strikes.
Go Record Screen Recorder: For easy GIFs from your iPhone screen
Go Record is not a dedicated GIF maker, so you will have to combine it with another app on this list to create your GIF. It excels at basic screen recording, allowing you to provide either a face-cam or audio commentary to an existing video, which makes for really fun GIFs. You can even add your own commentary to GIFs that you have already created. Go Record is free to download but does include advertising.
You are just a step away from making your own hilarious GIFs to share with your friends and post on your social accounts. Download a few of these great GIF maker apps to get started. And if you'd like to tweak the colors on the GIF you just created, one of these photo filter apps for iPhone will help.
