The Complete Guide to GIF Optimization
A 5-second GIF can easily weigh 5–10 MB — heavier than most entire web pages. GIF stores each frame separately with no inter-frame compression, making optimization essential.
Why GIFs Are So Large
Every frame is stored individually (45 frames for a 3-second GIF at 15fps), there's no inter-frame compression, and lossless encoding limits data reduction.
How to Optimize
Reduce the color palette, optimize frames by removing unchanged pixels, apply lossy preprocessing, and reduce frame rate. Combined, these techniques can cut file sizes by 50–70%.