Convert GIF to MP4
GIF is 30 years old and stores every frame as a compressed image. MP4 uses inter-frame compression, so the same clip is usually 5–10× smaller as an MP4 and looks smoother. Wave re-encodes locally - the GIF stays on your device.
What actually changes
GIF stores animation as a sequence of full frames with LZW compression. It has no concept of temporal compression (predicting one frame from the next), which is why colourful animations balloon into tens of megabytes. MP4 with a modern video codec throws away almost all of that redundancy without visible loss.
Wave decodes each GIF frame and re-encodes to H.264 through the browser's WebCodecs encoder when available (Chrome, Edge, Safari 16.4+, most Chromium-based mobile browsers), falling back to LGPL MPEG-4 Part 2 otherwise. Frame rate is 30 fps by default - enough for smooth motion loops without inflating the file. Because there's no audio track to worry about, the MP4 is video-only. Twitter, Bluesky, iMessage, Slack, and Discord all accept these MP4s and treat them like GIFs (auto-play, muted, looping).
Three steps.
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Step 1
Drop the .gif file onto the card.
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Step 2
Wave shows Re-encode needed - GIF always takes this path.
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Step 3
Convert. The MP4 will be much smaller than the GIF you started with.
Answers, specifically.
How much smaller is an MP4 than the GIF?
A typical 5-second animation drops from 8 MB as a GIF to well under 1 MB as an MP4, with better colour and smoother motion.
Will the MP4 loop like the GIF?
On social platforms that render video like GIFs (Twitter, iMessage, Discord), yes - the client handles the loop. In a video player, looping depends on the player's setting.
Do transparency effects survive?
No. MP4 has no widely-supported alpha channel. Transparent GIF pixels render against a black background in the MP4.
What frame rate does the MP4 use?
Wave targets 30 fps, which is enough for smooth motion loops without inflating the file. GIFs above 30 fps get resampled down.
Can I convert a screen recording that ended up as a GIF?
Yes. In fact, this is the highest-value use case - screen-record GIFs of demos are notoriously bloated, and going to MP4 cuts the size hugely.