Animated GIFs are used every day by hundreds of millions of users around the world to express their mood on social networks, messaging apps and forums. In short, the scenarios for using these images are almost unlimited, but despite this, not everyone has a clear idea of how to make the most of them.
As evidence of what has just been said, every day I receive many messages from readers asking me how to save GIFs locally so that they can be reused on social networks, forums and other online contexts. How do you say? Are you part of these too? Then know that you have come to the right place at the right time!
If you also are not clear on how to download a GIF on smartphone and tablet or PC, take five minutes of free time and follow the instructions I am about to give you. In fact, in the next chapters, in addition to listing the main services that allow you to easily download GIFs, I will show you how to use them best. I assure you that this is really a breeze. Enjoy your reading and have fun!
Index
- How to save GIF WhatsApp
- How to save GIFs from Twitter
- How to save GIFs from Google
- How to save GIFs in Photoshop
How to save GIF WhatsApp
Did you know that GIFs can also be saved from some instant messaging apps, such as the hugely popular WhatsApp ? No? So let me explain how it is possible to do this.
If you are using an Android smartphone , start the app in question and select the conversation that contains the GIF of your interest (from the Chat tab ). Then tap twice in a row on the image , in order to enlarge it. Then press the ⁝ button located at the top right and select the Share option from the menu that appears.
At this point, select the icon of the app in which you want to save the GIF (eg Google Drive , Google Photos etc.), confirm and you’re done; alternatively, you can also press directly on the Save item to download the image to the memory of your device. The GIF will be saved as a movie in MP4 format . Unfortunately, this is a WhatsApp limitation that cannot be overcome at the moment. However, you can convert video to GIF in a very simple way using various ad hoc solutions.
Net of what has just been said, the GIFs sent or received on WhatsApp for Android are automatically saved all in the folder Internal shared memory> Android> media> com.whatsapp> WhatsApp> Media> WhatsApp Animated Gifs (browsable with any file manager , such as e.g. Google Files ). However, these are always contents in MP4 format, therefore short videos and not real animated GIFs.
Wait, are you asking me how to save GIF to iPhone from WhatsApp app? No problem: open it and start playing the GIF from the chat that contains it; then perform a long tap on the image and choose the Forward option in the menu that opens. Then click on the share icon (the arrow in the square) and click on Save to File , to choose the folder of the device in which to save it. The file will be saved in the native GIF format.
Do you use WhatsApp on PC ? No problem. To save a GIF, open the chat that contains it, position the mouse pointer in the right corner of the image preview and, finally, click on the Download item (also in this case the images will be saved in MP4 format ).
I told you about these procedures in detail in my article on how to download GIFs on WhatsApp .
How to save GIFs from Twitter
Many of the Twitter profiles you follow share beautiful GIFs on a daily basis that promptly grab your attention and would you like to know how to save them? Unfortunately, I must inform you in this case that, unfortunately, at the time of writing, neither the official Twitter application nor the site of the social network in question integrate a function for saving GIFs.
How, then, to remedy the inconvenience? Simple: use websites that are suitable for the purpose. In this case I suggest you try an online service to download videos from Twitter .
To proceed, you will first need to copy the link of the tweet that contains the GIF to be saved; if you use the Twitter application for Android (also available on the alternative stores for devices without Google services) and on iOS / iPadOS , start the latter and, once you have identified the post with the GIF you are interested in, press the sharing (the one with the three dots connected by two lines) placed under the image; from here, tap on the Copy link option .
From a computer , on the other hand, connect to the official Twitter site and if necessary log in with your account credentials . once you have located the tweet with the GIF you want to download, right- click on it and press on the item to copy the address of the GIF . Once these preliminary steps have been completed, open the download service of your choice – I recommend this – and paste the link you just copied in the field at the top.
Finally, press the Download MP4 HD button (the file will be downloaded to MP4, so you will then have to convert video to GIF to get a new GIF you can use) and that’s it.
As an alternative to the site I just recommended, you can also use Twdownload , which is also immediate and free (unfortunately, even in this case the GIFs can only be downloaded as MP4 videos ). Once you have connected to the main page of the service, paste the link (obtainable as indicated above) of the tweet with the GIF you want to download in the field above.
Then click on the Download button and, from here, on the Download link button . The GIF will then open in full screen and to download it you just have to make a long tap on it (on smartphone or tablet) or a right click and choose the download option . For more information on these procedures read my post on how to download GIFs from Twitter .
How to save GIFs from Google
Are you wondering how to save GIFs from the Internet ? One of the simplest and most immediate ways to do this is to use the unlimited database of animated images on the Google service , the popular search engine of the Mountain View giant.
So I’ll show you how to download the GIFs using Google’s Chrome browser (which is available on Android and iOS / iPadOS ) for mobile devices (the same procedure is also valid for many other browsers ). First of all, connect to the main Google page and type in the search field the key terms that can be associated with the GIFs you want to find (eg cat ).
Now tap on the item Images at the top and then press the button with the three parallel lines at the top left. At this point, tap on the GIF item so that only the images belonging to this format are shown among the results. Once this is done, click on the preview of the GIF you are interested in; then, perform a long tap on the image and finally select the item Download image from the menu that is shown to you. Simple, right?
How do you say? Interested in knowing how to save GIFs on PC ? To repeat the steps just seen in this case, start any navigation browser, connect to the main Google page and type the search terms of the GIFs you are interested in. Now press on the item Images located at the top left and then click on the words Tools located at the top right.
Then press on the Type item and select the GIF option from the menu that is shown to you. Now press on the preview of the image you want to download and, once it is shown to you on the right side of the screen, right- click on it and select the item Save image as from the menu that opens. Now select a download location and that’s it.
If you are interested in learning more about what is explained in this chapter, please take a look at my post on how to download GIFs .
How to save GIFs in Photoshop
Do you use Photoshop on your PC, the very popular graphics and photo editing program for Windows and macOS that is part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite and have you just created an animation that you would like to export to GIF ? Well, then I’ll show you how to act in this case: first press on the File item you see at the top left, from here go to Export> Save for Web (previous version) .
