Easily Create GIFs from YouTube Videos and Other Video Streaming Sites

Whether you like it or not, GIFs and emojis have become the bedrock of modern communication. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then GIFs add some much more to a conversation. They communicate nuanced emotions, crack up friends and aid in forming a more personal connection. It’s a sound way to communicate in a world where the attention span is ever decreasing because of the diversity & vastness of content on the internet. So learn how to create GIFs from YouTube videos or any other site which host video to share with your close ones.

Generate GIFs from YouTube Videos and Other Sites That Host Video

Create GIFs from YouTube Videos

We tested multiple services like GIPHY’s GIF Maker and Makeagif to find the best service. While Makeagif was a perfectly adequate option, GIPHY’s GIF Maker only allowed 10 second GIFs. But the simplest method for creating a GIF is very similar to accessing geo-restricted YouTube content and only relies on a minor URL modification.

Step 1: Navigate to the target YouTube video.
Step 2: Add the keyword gif in front to the youtube URL. That’s it!

For example,

If the YouTube URL is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Make it https://www.gifyoutube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Step 3: Doing so will cause Chrome to redirect to gifs.com with the YouTube video already loaded.
Step 4: Now specify the start and end times. Additionally, you can spruce up the GIF by adding stickers, captions or cropping the GIF’s aspect ratio.
Step 5: Finally press Create gif button in the top right corner to play around with the titles and download the output.

Here’s how it’s done

Creating an account on gifs.com will allow you to store all your creations and keep them backed up. The site also allows users to upload videos from their hard disk for conversion.

Pay premium to remove watermark

Create GIFs from Other Video Hosting Sites

While the service if free to use with access to all the features, the final GIFs will come with a tiny unintrusive gifs.com watermark which can be removed by paying a monthly fee of $9.99 following a 15-day trial. Although Makeagif does what gifs.com does, it’s been more susceptible to failure in our testing. Hence it’s best to stick with gifs.com for other sites such as Instagram, Vimeo, Twitch, Liveleak, etc.

Of course, if you differ from our recommendation or think there’s a better solution out there, do leave a comment below and let us know.