How to Make GIFs on Tumblr

Love seeing GIFs on Tumblr? Make your own from your videos or photo bursts!

An image of the Tumblr sign-in page on a smartphone.

 

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For years, Tumblr users have enjoyed posting and reblogging thousands upon thousands of animated GIF images. And now thanks to the official Tumblr mobile app, you can learn how to make GIFs on Tumblr without having to use a separate tool first.

Why Tumblr Is GIF Central

Tumblr is one of the most popular microblogging platforms available today that's completely dominated by visual content. Its users are continuously posting and reblogging photo sets, videos and, of course GIFs. The best posts can go viral in a matter of hours.

GIFs strike the perfect balance between imagery and video. They're short, dynamic, and don't have any audio — so they're perfect for telling mini-stories or showing a short series of scenes that can be viewed and shared easily on both the desktop web and mobile devices.

Most users take scenes from videos to make GIFs that they can post to their blogs, or they simply scour the web for existing GIFs of music videos, memes, TV shows or movies that someone else has already made. Giphy is just one good source of popular GIFs that Tumblr users can take advantage of when they want to include dynamic visual content in their posts and reblogged captions.

How Tumblr Is Further Solidifying Itself as GIF Central

Interestingly enough, Tumblr noticed the big trend in how users were regularly inserting GIFs into their reblogged post captions and introduced a GIF-making feature to help them out with that. You can now easily find and insert GIFs into Tumblr captions without having to upload them first from your computer.

On the desktop web, anytime you reblog a post you can click on a small plus sign button that appears to the left of the caption area, which pulls up some formatting options. One of those options is a GIF button, which allows you to search through existing GIFs already on Tumblr to preview and then insert them into your caption.

Tumblr's Move Toward GIF Creation

Considering how popular the image format is on Tumblr, it makes sense that the blogging platform would launch its own built-in GIF creator tool. This will save users a lot of time and hassle from resorting to using third-party tools and then have to upload them to Tumblr.​

Now, whenever you plan to post a single photo or photoset on Tumblr through the mobile app, you get the option to turn any of your videos or photo busts into GIFs before you post them. It's super simple to do, and you can bet you'll get more likes and reblogs from it since Tumblr users adore this type of content.

Here's how to start making your own GIFs through the Tumblr app. Click through to the next slide to see some visual screenshots.

01
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Compose a New Photo Post in the Tumblr App

A screenshot of the Tumblr app for iOS.

You need to have the most recent version of the Tumblr mobile app installed on your iOS or Android device. GIFs can only be created from within the app and not on Tumblr.com in a web browser.

Open up the Tumblr app on your device and sign into your account if necessary.

From at the menu at the bottom of the screen, tap the Compose button located in the very middle (marked by a pencil icon). Next, tap the red Photo post button that's encircled by all the other post type buttons.

A new screen will appear with a Camera option at the top (if you want to snap a photo directly through the app) and a grid of the existing photos and videos you have on your device. You might need to give Tumblr permission to access your photos and videos if this is your first time using this post type through the mobile app.

02
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Select a Video or Photo Burst Marked with 'GIF'

A screenshot of the Tumblr app for iOS.

As you scroll down through your photos and videos, you should notice that some will have a 'GIF' label in the top right corner. All videos will have them, and any photo bursts (a group of multiple photos take by your device within a second or so) will include this label.

The label means that it's eligible to be turned into a GIF. Tap any video or photo burst you want to turn into a GIF.

You can filter out all still photos so that all you see are videos and photo bursts. This makes it easier to see everything that can be made into a GIF. To do this, just tap the GIFs tab at the very bottom of the screen.

03
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Edit Your GIF

A screenshot of the Tumblr app for iOS.

Tumblr will preview your GIF on a new screen. If you chose a video, it will show you a timeline of the video and provide you with a slider that you can slide along the video timeline to select a three-second scene as the GIF.

Once you select Next in the top right corner of the screen, you can tighten up your GIF to be even shorter and customize the speed to play and loop up to four times faster than the original. A preview is displayed as you make your changes, so you can see exactly how it will look before it's published.

Tap Next in the top right corner to do some optional editing. Tap the sticker button to apply fun stickers, the text button to write some text or the magic wand button repeatedly to apply different filters.

Tap Next when you're happy with your GIF.

04
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Publish Your GIF

A screenshot of the Tumblr app for iOS.

You'll be returned to the screen with the grid of photos and videos, and now you'll see that the video or photo burst you just turned into a GIF is highlighted with a blue label. This means that it's ready for posting.

From here, you have the option to turn more videos or photo bursts into GIFs so that you can include multiple GIFs in a photo set, or you can just post the single one you just made. Either tap another video or photo burst to turn it into a GIF, or leave the GIF you just made selected and tap the Next button in the top right corner to go ahead and preview/publish the single GIF you made.

If you decide to include multiple GIFs as a photo set, you can actually drag and drop any one to reorder them. Write an optional caption, add some tags and then hit 'Post' to send it live to your blog for all your followers to see.

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Your Citation
Moreau, Elise. "How to Make GIFs on Tumblr." ThoughtCo, Dec. 6, 2021, thoughtco.com/how-to-make-gifs-on-tumblr-3486063. Moreau, Elise. (2021, December 6). How to Make GIFs on Tumblr. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-make-gifs-on-tumblr-3486063 Moreau, Elise. "How to Make GIFs on Tumblr." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-make-gifs-on-tumblr-3486063 (accessed March 19, 2024).