How do I make a GIF smaller without losing too much quality?

Set the largest size you can accept (e.g. 8MB) and let GifDrop tune resolution, frame rate, colours and lossy compression to hit it. Shorter clips and fewer colours help most; WebP goes smaller still at the same quality.

How do I get a GIF under 8MB for Discord?

In GifDrop pick the 8MB preset and convert. It automatically scales the output to fit Discord's limit. For email use 25MB; for tighter limits, use a custom number or WebP.

Can I compress a GIF without uploading it?

Yes. GifDrop runs entirely on your Mac, so nothing is uploaded and there is no watermark.

Guide

How to reduce GIF file size on Mac

Need a GIF under 8 MB for Discord, or under 25 MB for email? Instead of fiddling with settings, GifDrop lets you set the target size and it compresses the GIF to fit — automatically, on your Mac, with no watermark.

Download GifDrop — Free

Make a GIF smaller in three steps

Open your source in GifDrop — a video or image sequence.
Pick a target — 5 MB, 8 MB, 10 MB, 25 MB, or a custom number.
Export — GifDrop auto-tunes resolution, frame rate, colours and compression to fit.

What actually shrinks a GIF

GIF size is driven by four things: dimensions, frame rate, number of frames (clip length), and colour count. GifDrop adjusts all of them for you to hit your target, prioritising the changes that keep quality highest. The biggest wins: trim the clip shorter and lower the frame rate — a few seconds at 12 fps looks great and is a fraction of the size.

When GIF can’t go small enough, use WebP

GIF is a 1987 format with hard limits, so there’s a floor to how small a detailed GIF can get. Animated WebP uses modern compression and is dramatically smaller at the same quality — switch the format in GifDrop with one click when you need to go further.

Upload size limits cheat sheet

The size to target so your GIF goes through first time (limits change over time — when in doubt, go smaller or use WebP):

Discord — 10 MB free (50 MB Nitro Basic, 500 MB Nitro)
Email (Gmail / Outlook) — 25 MB attachment
GitHub — 10 MB per image in issues, PRs and READMEs
Twitter / X — 15 MB GIF on web (5 MB on mobile)
WhatsApp — about 16 MB
Slack — large per-file cap, but smaller embeds play better; target ~10–25 MB
Imgur — 200 MB

Pick the matching preset in GifDrop (8, 10 or 25 MB, or custom) and it fits the file for you.

GIF vs WebP: how much smaller?

GIF has no real video compression — just 256 colours and full frames — so a few seconds of 1080p video can run to tens of megabytes. WebP uses modern compression and is typically several times smaller at the same quality. In a simple test, a clip that was 262 KB as a GIF was 28 KB as WebP — roughly 9× smaller. Real footage varies, but the pattern holds: if a GIF won’t fit, WebP usually will.