Convert Videos to GIFs with Python in Just a Few Lines

1. Introduction

Many websites offer video‑to‑GIF conversion but often charge or display ads; with a few lines of Python you can perform the conversion yourself.

2. Tutorial

1. Install the required library

pip install moviepy -i https://pypi.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/simple

2. Write the code

from moviepy.editor import *
clip = VideoFileClip("movie.mp4")  # path to source video
clip.write_gif("movie.gif")

3. Conversion result

The GIF above is only a few seconds long but its size is 9 MB even after resolution scaling.

If the source video is tens of seconds long, the resulting file can reach hundreds of megabytes.

4. Reducing large GIF size

Besides resizing the resolution, you can lower the frame rate (fps) to shrink the file.

from moviepy.editor import *
clip = VideoFileClip("movie.mp4").resize((488, 225))
clip.write_gif("movie.gif", fps=15)  # 15 frames per second

Setting the fps to 15 reduces the file to about 2 MB, roughly a four‑fold reduction, with little visual difference.

5. Converting a video segment

Use the subclip parameter to specify the start and end times of the segment you want to convert.

from moviepy.editor import *
clip = VideoFileClip("movie.mp4").subclip(t_start=1, t_end=2).resize((488, 225))
clip.write_gif("movie.gif", fps=15)

6. Specifying output resolution

The resize argument can define the output size in pixels, a scaling factor, or a percentage.

(width, height) in pixels, e.g., (600, 400) Scaling factor, e.g., 0.5 for 50 % reduction

# Set output size to 600×400
clip = VideoFileClip("movie.mp4").resize((600, 400))

# Scale original video to 50 %
clip = VideoFileClip("movie.mp4").resize(0.5)