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BMP to GIF converter

Convert BMP to GIF in your browser. No upload and no account: the file never leaves your device, so the only size limit is your device’s memory.

I want GIF
90%
Icon sizes
How to make the SVG

Tracing suits logos, icons and flat artwork and scales cleanly. Photos are better kept as pixels inside the SVG.

16
50%
Dither Scatters black dots to suggest gray, instead of a hard cut-off.
Advanced 5
Keep the animation For animated GIF, WebP and APNG sources. Turn off to save just the first frame.
Rotate
Mirror horizontally
Mirror vertically

For an exact width and height, use the Resize Image tool instead.

Bytes of your files sent anywhere: 0 B

Related conversions

Need it the other way round? Convert GIF to BMP

Other ways to convert BMP

Convert other formats to GIF

Read more about the BMP format and the GIF format, or see every image tool and all image conversions.

Should you convert BMP to GIF?

A safe conversion when GIF is what you need: both BMP and GIF keep every pixel, so the picture itself doesn’t change.

GIF is also the more widely supported of the two: it opens everywhere, while BMP is opens almost everywhere.

BMP is an uncompressed grid of pixels; GIF is a 256-color image format best known for short looping animations. Use GIF for a few seconds of silent animation that has to play inline everywhere, including in email clients that block video.

BMP and GIF compared
Property BMP GIF
Compression Uncompressed Lossless
Transparency No On/off only
Animation No Yes
Support Opens almost everywhere Opens everywhere
Best for Old software and hardware that only understands raw bitmaps Short, silent loops and reaction images
Introduced 1990 1987

How to convert BMP to GIF

  1. 01

    Add your BMP

    Drop your BMP image onto the box, or click to choose it. It is read from your disk and stays there.

  2. 02

    Check the settings

    The output is already set to GIF. Change the quality if you want to; the defaults suit most files.

  3. 03

    Save the GIF

    Press convert and save the GIF. Several files come back together as a ZIP.

What changes when BMP becomes GIF

Nothing is discarded

BMP and GIF both keep every pixel, so the picture survives the move intact. You can convert back and forth as often as you like without it degrading.

Expect a much smaller file

BMP: A 12-megapixel image is about 36 MB. GIF: A five-second animation can easily pass 10 MB. Shrinking the file is often the main reason to make this conversion.

This page is put together from our notes on each format, choosing only what is true of BMP and GIF, so every pairing states the same facts the same way. How these pages are made.

Why it doesn’t upload

Changing a picture’s format is work your browser already knows how to do. Sending your photos to a server first only adds waiting and risk, so nothing is sent.

How to check for yourself

Worth knowing

  • About the BMP. BMP looks like a safe “raw” choice, but a single photo can run to tens of megabytes and most sites refuse it.
  • About the GIF. A few seconds of video as GIF is often ten times the size of the same clip as MP4, because GIF compresses each frame as a separate picture.
  • DDS, PSD, EXR, XWD and JPEG 2000 are read by the FFmpeg engine, a one-time 31 MB download.

Questions

Will converting BMP to GIF lose quality?

No. BMP and GIF are both lossless, so every pixel is kept.

Will the GIF be smaller than the BMP?

Expect a much smaller file. BMP: A 12-megapixel image is about 36 MB. GIF: A five-second animation can easily pass 10 MB. Shrinking the file is often the main reason to make this conversion.

Read more about this

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