Hey @Jeff_AZ , thanks for posting this! I bookmarked it and came back to experiment today, but I’m getting stuck. I created the shortcut and have successfully made several GIFs, but I can’t upload any of them to a post here in the forum because they’re too big. The maximum upload size for the forum is a bit less than 8MB, but even a 4-second video converted to a GIF comes out at over 88MB using this method. How do you get yours right-sized? I know there are web-based GIF-compression utilities, but is there a more convenient technique? (I’m probably overlooking something obvious.)
It first let’s you trim the photo. Mine is 4.56 seconds and I’m going to trim to 4.0 seconds (you can do less and have better quality). I’ll cut .32 off the front and end it at 4.32.
It compresses to 8.31 MB. I’ll then tap “resize” and adjust it very slightly to 675 X 380. (It estimates higher than what it will actually be). After I save it says it’s 7.74 MB, just under the Forum limit of 7.81.
Thanks so much for the detailed reply! I have an iPhone but I’m sure many Android people will benefit from this.
I did change the video setting from 1080 to 720, but the results are still huge. I might use a web app to compress, but that’s a lot of steps and probably would dissuade me from making GIFs very often.
Figuring out what length and settings to use that will let it fit on the forum does take some time and experimenting. But once you figure it out for your specific device and app (take notes!), you can do it fairly quickly. Now, while in the parks, a couple gifs a day was plenty to mess with. But you can take more time at night to make the gifs too.
I don’t know why exactly mine have worked when yours haven’t, but it probably has to do with making gifs that are trimmed down to a certain length. Keep trimming until it works. Otherwise, get an app that can compress.
Okay, I found an iPhone app that works pretty well.
ImgPlay. I just installed and tested the free version. You can take a video right in the app or use one from your photo library. You can trim it and edit it in other ways, and save it as a GIF or video in low, medium or high quality.
For this one, I used the GIF Size button, which lets you set a maximum file size for the resulting GIF, and save it to the photo library. Very handy for this here forum!
Made this one with another app called GifMe. I don’t see as many options for sizing. This one happened to save at just under the forum upload limit. It’s nice that it’s bigger. Also, no watermark.
Hmm, seems like GifMe will import only portrait mode videos from the photo library. And it will record (directly in the app) only in 1:1 or 3:4 aspect ratio. I could be missing something. But I’ve lost patience with this one, as it doesn’t seem to have enough options for what I need.
