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ICO to GIF converter

Convert ICO 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 ICO

Other ways to convert ICO

Convert other formats to GIF

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

Should you convert ICO to GIF?

A safe conversion when GIF is what you need: both ICO 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 ICO is opens almost everywhere.

ICO is a small container that holds the same icon at several sizes; 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.

ICO and GIF compared
Property ICO GIF
Compression Lossless Lossless
Transparency Yes On/off only
Animation No Yes
Support Opens almost everywhere Opens everywhere
Best for Website favicons and Windows shortcuts Short, silent loops and reaction images
Introduced 1985 1987

How to convert ICO to GIF

  1. 01

    Add your ICO

    Drop your ICO 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 ICO becomes GIF

Nothing is discarded

ICO 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.

Transparency becomes on or off

GIF pixels are either fully transparent or fully solid. Soft edges and shadows from the ICO are rounded one way or the other, which can leave a thin fringe around cut-out shapes.

Expect a larger file

GIF generally takes more room than ICO. If the file has to fit an upload limit, check the size once it’s converted. ICO: A full favicon with every size is usually under 100 KB. GIF: A five-second animation can easily pass 10 MB.

This page is put together from our notes on each format, choosing only what is true of ICO 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 ICO. Renaming a PNG to favicon.ico works in some browsers and silently fails in others. A real ICO holds several sizes so each place picks the right one.
  • 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 ICO to GIF lose quality?

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

Will the GIF be smaller than the ICO?

Expect a larger file. GIF generally takes more room than ICO. If the file has to fit an upload limit, check the size once it’s converted. ICO: A full favicon with every size is usually under 100 KB. GIF: A five-second animation can easily pass 10 MB.

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