Animated GIFs are a great source of amusement — not to mention, a big business opportunity. It’s entertaining to come across a hilarious GIF your friend posted while scrolling through your social feed. Uploading them to Facebook is easy, but what if you want to post them on Instagram? Sadly, posting a GIF on Instagram is not as straightforward as one would like, though, you can use video as a work around until the social platform adds native support for animated GIFs.
In order to upload GIFs to Instagram you need to first convert them into a video file. Afterward, you’ll be able to post your GIF on Instagram like you would your standard video. Here’s how to post GIFs on Instagram, if you need further clarification.
How to post GIFs using Giphy
Giphy is a popular search engine for GIFs, one you likely already use when sourcing for a GIF. The nice thing about Giphy, however, is that it lets you easily post to various social networks, including Instagram. After finding that perfect GIF on your desktop machine, all you need to do is click the Instagram icon and enter your email when prompted (a box will appear). Once done, a 15-second MP4 will appear in your inbox.
Next, open the email message on your phone — remember, you can only post to Instagram using the mobile app — and save the video to your phone’s camera roll. Then, open Instagram and post the GIF. The process is just like sharing any photo or video, meaning you’ll be able to add a caption, filter, and location. You can also download the GIF to your computer and transfer it to your phone, instead of having Giphy email it.
The process is even easier with Giphy’s mobile app. It’s similar to the desktop method outlined above, but doesn’t require you to email the video to yourself. Instead, it allows you to download the GIF to your camera roll and open it in an Instagram post.
You can also use Giphy with GIFs from other places, whether it’s from your desktop or another website (like Imgur). To do so, simply upload it to the Giphy website. Afterward, follow the same directions as outlined above to share it to Instagram. Just make sure that the GIF you’re uploading is something that you have permission to repost, or you could run into legal trouble.
There are plenty of GIF-related websites besides Giphy, but we find Giphy to have a robust library and an easy approach for uploading GIFs to Instagram.
How to post GIFs using Photoshop
Do you own Photoshop? If so, you can use it to easily convert GIFs into a video file that you can then upload to Instagram.
The process is really simple. First, open the GIF inside Photoshop and click File, Export, and Render Video. Don’t worry about adjusting the settings — the default settings are fine, so just pick a location where you want to save the GIF and hit Render. Most GIFs are relatively small, so it should take a minute or two at the most to render the video.
Once you’ve rendered your video file, send the file to your phone via email, Dropbox, or whatever method you prefer to transfer files. Then, post to the video to Instagram as you would with any other picture or piece of content.
The above method is for quickly rending an existing GIF into a movie file, but Photoshop is a powerful tool for creating GIFs. If you want to make your own, we have a guide on how to do just that.