What's the easiest way to save a GIFV as a simple GIF?

Usually I open the context menu right clicking on the image. Now theres no option for "save image as", just options for the WEBM/MP4 format.

Herr_Schwabullek

Posted 2015-01-23T18:07:39.073

Reputation: 377

Answers

GIFV isn't a GIF at all, in the traditional sense anyway. It's actually a video file.

Here's what I read from Imgur's blog post introducing GIFV:

The cornerstone of Project GIFV is a platform-wide upgrade to automatically convert uploaded GIF files on the fly into the WebM or MP4 video formats, depending on browser support.
...
Project GIFV implements video in a way that looks and behaves exactly like a GIF.

If you right-clicked on a GIFV and selected Open link in new tab (or a similar option) you'd see that Imgur creates a minimalistic web page that it seems like you just opened a GIF in a new tab but right-click anywhere on the page and select View Source and you'll see that isn't the case.

To answer your question, the easiest way to save a GIFV as a GIF (if it is hosted on Imgur.com) is to open it in a new tab and click on the download link at the bottom. download GIFV

If the GIFV is hosted on another site (not that I know of any other sites hosting GIFV) you can use either of the two online video conversion services:

NOTE: Downloading a GIFV as a proper GIF will most certainly increase the file size by a big margin. If you'd rather download the WEBM or MP4 video instead, you may right click on the GIFV and select Save video as... (or a similar option).

Vinayak

Posted 2015-01-23T18:07:39.073

Reputation: 9 310

The download button just downloaded a gifv for me. :( – ruffin – 2019-01-09T14:50:09.270

@ruffin it seems to still work for me. Could you share the imgur link to the GIF you're trying to download? – Vinayak – 2019-01-11T15:43:13.313

This example does not behave like you describe: https://imgur.com/Bwgxvhe ... I have used it b4 and I know works sometmes, ijdk what the cause of the difference is.

– Rondo – 2019-06-14T21:11:31.050

@Rondo The other way is to just add a .gifv at the end of the URL. That works for this. – Vinayak – 2019-06-16T12:39:44.580

No, it doesn't... If you add the gifv extension to the url I posted you get a download link that only downloads as mp4 – Rondo – 2019-06-16T23:51:26.673

@Rondo You're right. It doesn't work with this GIF. Maybe Imgur changed something on their end. – Vinayak – 2019-06-17T06:02:36.120

For Imgur URLs, if you remove the V from .gifv then you will get the original animated GIF.

(This might not be "a simple GIF" but could be a large file, as explained on Imgur's blog. Like in http://i.imgur.com/zvATqgs.gifv the embedded video is 3.4 MB, but the original animated GIF http://i.imgur.com/zvATqgs.gif is 46.7 MB.)

Toby

Posted 2015-01-23T18:07:39.073

Reputation: 151

2That's not true. A .gifv file is a video file, not a .gif image. – slhck – 2015-05-14T18:19:29.930

7@slhck Actually, if he meant changing .gifv to .gif in the imgur.com URL pointing to the GIF, Imgur would deliver the uncompressed GIF instead of the video file. – Vinayak – 2015-05-15T08:46:00.173

Ah, you're right @Vinayak, that must have been what they meant. – Arjan – 2015-05-17T10:19:09.120

@Vinayak That gave me a single-frame gif. – ruffin – 2019-01-09T14:51:42.620

@ruffin do you have the link to it? – Vinayak – 2019-01-11T15:42:05.747

Renaming .gifv to .gif extension on the address bar does not work for me.

Right click on the .gifv and copy video url, this will copy it's url with .mp4 extension.

Use wget or other tools to download the file. It usually redirects back to the .gifv link on a browser.

sudo

Posted 2015-01-23T18:07:39.073

Reputation: 171