About the GIF Splitter
A browser will happily play a GIF but it will only ever hand a canvas the very first frame, so this page carries its own GIF reader. It walks the block structure of the file, expands the LZW coded pixel indices of each frame, maps them through the global or local colour table, and then composites the frame onto the running canvas exactly as a player would. That last step matters: most GIFs store only the rectangle that changed since the previous frame, so a naive extractor returns a stack of odd looking patches instead of finished pictures.
The three disposal methods defined by the format are all honoured. Do not dispose leaves the pixels in place, restore to background clears the previous rectangle, and restore to previous rewinds the canvas to the snapshot taken before that frame was drawn. Interlaced frames are un-shuffled through the standard four pass row order, and a transparent palette index is turned into real alpha rather than a black square.
Each frame appears with its delay in milliseconds so you can spot a slow hold or a stray one hundredth of a second. Click a file name to save that single frame, or use Download for a ZIP containing all of them at full size. Frame count is capped so a very long animation does not fill memory. To inspect timing, palette and loop settings without extracting anything, use GIF Viewer.
How to use
- Drop an animated .gif onto the left pane.
- Pick PNG for exact colours or JPG when the frames are photographic and you want smaller files.
- Raise Max frames if the animation is longer than the default 48 frames.
- Click a file name under any thumbnail to save one frame, or press Download for the ZIP.
Common questions
- Why do the extracted frames look complete when the GIF stores only changes?
- Each frame is composited onto the previous canvas state before it is exported, following the disposal method recorded in the file, so every image you get is a finished picture.
- Does the ZIP contain full size frames or the previews?
- The ZIP holds full resolution frames. The thumbnails on screen are shrunk only so the grid stays readable.
- What if I drop a PNG or JPG here by mistake?
- The tool notices the file is not a GIF and treats it as a single still frame instead of failing.
- Are the frame delays preserved anywhere?
- The delay of each frame is printed under its thumbnail and included in the text summary that the Copy button gives you.