Discord GIF Size Limit: What It Is and How to Get Under It
Discord doesn't have a special rule for GIFs. It has a limit on every file you upload, and a GIF is just a file that tends to blow past it. The numbers have moved recently, and a lot of guides online still quote the old ones, so here's what's been reported, and then what to do when your GIF is still too big.
Why GIFs hit the limit so quickly
A GIF is a stack of full pictures, so its size grows with the width, the frame rate and the number of seconds all at once. A short, small GIF is fine. A 15-second screen recording at 720px can easily run past 10 MB. The good news is that you have a lot of control, and most of it is free.
| Width | Size |
|---|---|
| 128 px | 95 KB |
| 256 px | 248 KB |
| 320 px | 320 KB |
| 480 px | 658 KB |
| 720 px | 1,441 KB |
Going from 720px to 480px cut the file to under half. That's the biggest single lever after trimming, and on a phone-sized chat window you'll hardly see the difference.
Getting a GIF under the limit
- Add your clip and trim it to the part people need to see. Every second you cut is size you don't pay for.
- Crop away empty space. Fewer pixels, smaller file.
- Open the Format tab. Under "Size to fit" choose 20 MB · Discord and press Fit to 20 MB. The tool tries combinations of width, frame rate and quality and picks the best-looking one that fits.
- If even the lightest settings come out too big, it'll tell you roughly how many seconds you can keep. Shorten it, or switch to WebP or MP4.
Or just send an MP4
Discord plays video in the chat with a small player. If you don't need the loop-and-autoplay behaviour of a GIF, an MP4 of the same moment is far smaller (26 KB against 658 KB in the table in our GIF vs MP4 guide) and sails under any limit. It won't loop quite like a GIF does, but for a clip someone is meant to watch once, it's often the better call.
Custom emoji are a different game
An emoji slot wants something tiny: reportedly 256 KB or less, and it'll be shown very small anyway. So there's no point in detail. Crop the clip to a square, then use a width of 128px, 10fps, and keep it to a second or two.
| Length | Best | Balanced | Smallest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 second | 21 KB | 17 KB | 13 KB |
| 2 seconds | 37 KB | 28 KB | 19 KB |
On a simple test clip that's nowhere near the limit. Busy footage will use more of the room, which is why "Size to fit" has a 256 KB option: it checks for you. If you want the emoji to sit on any background, make the background transparent first.
Make an emoji or sticker with a see-through backgroundFilm or export against a flat colour, pick it, and it disappears. Works as GIF, WebP or APNG.What about the built-in GIF picker?
Discord's GIF picker sends links to GIFs hosted elsewhere, so the upload limit doesn't apply to those. It only comes into play when you upload a file of your own, like a screen recording you want to show a friend.