Free GIF to APNG Converter
APNG (Animated PNG) supports 24-bit full color and true alpha transparency — far superior to GIF's 256-color indexed palette. Convert instantly, free, in your browser.
Drop GIF here or click to browse
Converts in your browser — nothing uploaded
How It Works
Upload your GIF file
Click the upload area or drag your .gif file onto the converter. The file is processed entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded to any server. GIF files up to 50 MB are supported.
The converter extracts and re-encodes every frame
FFmpeg WebAssembly reads the GIF frame sequence, extracts each frame as a raw image, and re-encodes them as PNG frames with full 24-bit color depth and 8-bit alpha transparency. The frames are assembled into an APNG container with the original frame timings preserved.
Download your .apng file
The output file has a .apng extension and is a valid Animated PNG that modern browsers display automatically when used in a standard <img> tag. No JavaScript, no special embed code — just a regular image tag.
Embed it on your website or app
Use <img src="animation.apng" alt="description"> in any HTML page. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge all animate APNG natively. You can also use it as a CSS background-image and it will animate in all supported browsers.
Why APNG Is Better Than GIF
GIF was created in 1987 with a fundamental constraint that has never been fixed: each frame of animation can contain at most 256 colors, selected from a palette derived from the image content. On any image with complex color content — photographs, smooth gradients, soft shadows, anti-aliased text, skin tones — this limitation produces visible color banding and dithering artifacts. GIF has been carrying this limitation for nearly 40 years, and there is no way to increase its color depth within the format specification.
APNG (Animated Portable Network Graphics) was proposed as an extension to the PNG specification in 2004 and is now supported by every major browser. It stores each animation frame as a complete PNG image, which means each frame has 24-bit RGB color (16.7 million colors) and an independent 8-bit alpha channel. The 8-bit alpha channel is the critical difference for modern UI work: it supports 256 levels of transparency per pixel, enabling smooth semi-transparent edges, drop shadows, blurred halos, and rounded corner anti-aliasing. GIF's transparency is binary — a pixel is either fully transparent or fully opaque, with no intermediate values.
For web and app UI designers, APNG unlocks animation use cases that GIF simply cannot handle: loading spinners with smooth fade effects, notification badge pulse animations, sticker content with semi-transparent drop shadows, and branded micro-animations with smooth gradient transitions. Anywhere GIF's jagged edges and color banding would be visible in a polished UI, APNG is the correct format.
UI animations and loading states: Loading spinners, skeleton loaders, progress animations, and transition effects all benefit from APNG's full alpha channel. A spinner with a smooth fade-out halo effect looks polished as APNG and looks rough as GIF.
Stickers and emoji-style content: Apple iMessage stickers and many messaging app sticker packs use APNG for animated sticker content. The full alpha channel allows stickers to have smooth outlines and blend naturally against any chat background color — impossible with GIF's binary transparency.
Branded micro-animations: Logo animations, icon transitions, and brand motion graphics require full color fidelity. A logo with a subtle gradient sweep or a colored glow effect loses its polish when forced into GIF's 256-color palette. APNG preserves the exact color values from the original design.
When not to use APNG: APNG is not suitable for email (most clients do not animate it), it is not accepted by social video platforms (use MP4), and it does not appear in GIF search indexes on platforms like GIPHY or Tenor (use GIF for that distribution). APNG is a web and app format, not a social sharing format.
Key Features
24-Bit Full Color
16.7 million colors per frame — no 256-color palette limit, no banding or dithering.
True Alpha Transparency
256 levels of per-pixel transparency for smooth edges, shadows, and anti-aliasing.
100% Private
Your GIF is never uploaded. All conversion runs in your browser via WebAssembly.
Standard <img> Embed
Use APNG exactly like a GIF in HTML — no JavaScript or special attributes needed.
iMessage Sticker Ready
APNG is the native format for Apple iMessage animated stickers.
All Modern Browsers
Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge all animate APNG natively since 2017+.
Format Comparison
| Feature | GIF | APNG |
|---|---|---|
| Color depth | 256 colors (8-bit indexed) | 16.7 million colors (24-bit RGB) |
| Transparency | Binary (on/off only) | Full 8-bit alpha (0–255 levels) |
| Compression | LZW (lossless, per-frame) | DEFLATE (lossless, per-frame) |
| Browser support | All browsers (IE6+) | All modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge) |
| Email client support | Broad (best for email) | Limited (no animation in Gmail/Outlook) |
| Embed method | <img> tag | <img> tag (same) |
| Typical file size | Smaller (for simple graphics) | Larger (full color data per frame) |
| Best for | Social sharing, email, messaging | UI animations, stickers, web design |
Technical Details
APNG extends the PNG specification with three new chunk types: acTL (Animation Control chunk, containing frame count and loop count), fcTL (Frame Control chunk, one per frame, containing frame dimensions, position, timing, and disposal/blend mode), and fdAT (Frame Data chunk, containing the compressed PNG image data for each frame). The first frame's data is stored in a standard IDAT chunk so that PNG decoders that do not understand APNG will display the first frame as a static image — full backward compatibility.
The fcTL blend mode is particularly important: APNG supports two blend operations — APNG_BLEND_OP_SOURCE (replace the canvas entirely with frame data) and APNG_BLEND_OP_OVER (alpha-composite the frame over the previous canvas). This enables APNG animations where semi-transparent frames are composited over a background, producing effects impossible in GIF. FFmpeg uses SOURCE blend mode when converting from GIF, preserving the original animation behavior.
The conversion uses FFmpeg's apng muxer. Each GIF frame is decoded to a raw RGBA pixel buffer, then encoded as a deflate-compressed PNG frame chunk. Compared to GIF's LZW compression, PNG's DEFLATE tends to compress differently — better for images with large uniform regions, occasionally larger for highly dithered content. The key advantage is not compression ratio but color fidelity: APNG stores exact pixel colors without palette quantization loss.