How Can I Save a .gif To My iPhone?

Comments: 2 Responses to “How Can I Save a .gif To My iPhone?”

Gary Rosenzweig

8 years ago

Yes, and no.
If you tap and hold over an animated GIF, or any image in a web browser, you should get the context menu and be able to "Save Image." That will save the image to your Camera Roll on your iPhone. However, note that it is easy and common for websites to forbid that function, so you can't do it everywhere.
However, if you then view it in your Photos app, it won't animate. That is because the Photos app doesn't support "animated" GIFs, just static ones. That is true of a lot of image apps. Animated GIFs are something specifically supported in web browsers and a few other places, but not everywhere.
Sometimes when you tap and hold an image on the web, you get a context menu to "copy" the GIF. Then, you can go to another app, like Notes or Pages or something else and paste the image in like any other thing you copy. The same problems as before -- some websites prohibit this and many apps won't show the animation.
As for "reuse" -- that depends as well. How will you reuse them? If you send them to someone else via email, for instance, it will often be the case that their email app or service won't support animated GIFs, only static ones.

Eric

8 years ago

I have found in the Google Photos app that storing animated GIFs there, the thumbnail will actually "play out." I also created an album in the iPhones native Photos app and named it "GIFs" as they will be easier to find since they don't animate there.