How to Use GIFs on Facebook

They're in the More menu when you're making a post, but there's a button when you're leaving a comment

What to Know

  • Select the three-dot menu when you're creating a post, and then choose GIF.
  • If you're commenting on someone else's post, look for the GIF button to the right of the text field.

GIF sharing is becoming just as popular on Facebook as it is on other social networks. People posting on social networks often use GIFs as a way to convey a reaction or to summarize a message.

How to Use Facebook's Built-In GIF Tool

GIF files are short, repeating images often taken from video clips. They can also be homemade animations or just sparkly moving images. Facebook has its own built-in GIF tool that you can use to search for and easily insert GIFs into both your status updates and comment sections.

The following instructions apply to both Facebook.com in a web browser and the official Facebook app.

  1. Find the Create post field at the top of your news feed or on your profile.

  2. On the web, tap the three horizontal dots beneath the field and select GIF.

    Creating a post on Facebook.com.

    On the app, tap What's on your mind (inside the field) and then select GIF.

  3. Type a keyword or phrase into the GIF search field that appears. Alternatively, scroll through the trending GIFs that appear in the grid below the search field.

  4. When you find a GIF you want to use, click or tap it to insert it into your post. Please note that you can only attach one GIF at a time per post.

    Adding a photo to a post on Facebook.com.

    You can still add an optional message before your after you insert the GIF into your status update.

Using GIFs in Facebook Comments

Inserting GIFs into comments on your friends' posts is just as easy as inserting them into your own status updates — and you can do it both from the web and the app too. All you need to do is look for the GIF icon beside the comment field and then follow steps three and four above.

Searching GIFs on Facebook.com.

Where to Find More GIFs to Manually Post on Facebook

Facebook also allows GIF posting by manual sharing or upload. This can be useful when you have a specific GIF you want to share that you can't seem to find in Facebook's built-in GIF tool.

There are lots of places to search for GIFs. Downloading (and sometimes making) them is easy.

GIPHY is one of the best places you can look for trending GIFs and GIFs in categories like entertainment, sports, holidays, memes, etc. It's currently known as the web's largest and most popular GIG search engine.

GIPHY website.

Imgur is known for their GIF images, too, and plenty of them are ones that you can download straight from their app or website. You can browse for images by tags like funny, summer, uplifting, food, virtual reality, memes, and lots of others.

Once you've downloaded a GIF you want to share on Facebook, you can upload it by selecting the camera icon in any status update or comment, just like if you were uploading a regular image file.

Keep in mind that some online GIFs might be displayed on the web page but aren't technically available to download in the GIF format, in which case posting the link through Facebook won't show your friends the GIF you want to share. You can tell whether this is the case if you try to download the GIF and it has the HTML or MP4 file extension instead of GIF. To avoid this, you have to keep clicking through until you reach a download page where you see a GIF URL you can copy or a download button.

Make Your Own GIF

Another way to get yourself a great GIF to share with Facebook friends is by making your own, which is ideal for those times when you're quoting a specific clip from a video. You can turn videos into GIFs, as well as make them from scratch, online or through programs like GIMP or Photoshop.

Interested in making your own GIFs? Check out the best free GIF maker apps.

Upload Your GIF

Once you've downloaded a GIF you want to share on Facebook, you can upload it by selecting the camera icon in any status update or comment field, just like if you were uploading a regular image file.

If all you have is the URL to a GIF (i.e., it's not downloaded to your device), you can still post it as part of your Facebook status by pasting the link into the status box.

Depending on the site it's hosted on, Facebook should recognize that it's a GIF image and automatically insert it into your status update or comment. You can then build your status normally, and even erase the GIF link, and the image will still post.

If you can't seem to upload the GIF to Facebook and make it display correctly, another option you might want to try is saving the GIF to an image hosting site and then sharing the link on Facebook. Just upload your GIF to one of those websites, copy the link, and paste it in Facebook to instantly share the image.

Online storage sites are also really useful if you like to pick from dozens (or hundreds) of your favorite GIFs. Instead of storing them all on your device, upload them online and have them available anywhere you go.

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