What splitting a GIF means
An animated GIF is made of several frames, and each one can store only the region that changed compared with the previous frame. This keeps the file small, but it means a single frame inside the file is often just a partial patch, not a complete picture.
Splitting a GIF means rebuilding each full frame so you can treat it as a normal image. The tool decodes the file, places every patch onto a canvas the size of the whole animation, and then exports the canvas as a PNG for each step. PNG is a good target because it is lossless and handles transparency.
The result is a grid of individual images, one for every frame in the animation.
Why you might want the individual frames
Extracting frames is useful when you want to grab one exact moment from an animation, such as a reaction image or a clean still for a document. Designers sometimes split a GIF to edit particular frames and then rebuild the animation. Developers use it to inspect how an animation is constructed, or to turn a loading spinner into a sprite sheet.
It is also a practical way to check the quality of a GIF. Looking at the frames one by one reveals dithering, color banding or an unwanted flash frame that is hard to spot at full speed.
After editing the frames, you can reassemble them with the GIF Maker, or convert a favorite frame to another format with the PNG to JPG tool.
How to split a GIF into PNG frames
- Drop a GIF onto the upload area or click it to browse. The tool accepts GIF files only.
- A short "Extracting frames" message shows while the file is read. Processing happens in your browser, so the file is not uploaded.
- When it finishes, a grid of thumbnails appears, one for each frame in order.
- Click a thumbnail to download that single frame. Hovering over it shows a download icon. Files are named frame-1.png, frame-2.png and so on, matching the position in the animation.
- Click Start over to load another GIF.
There is no "download all" button. Each frame is saved with its own click.
Limits and what to expect
Each downloaded frame has the full dimensions of the animation, not just the changed area, because the tool composites the frames onto one canvas as it goes. That matches what you would expect to see on screen for most GIFs.
The tool does not clear the canvas between frames. Frames are painted on top of the previous ones, which is correct for the many GIFs that update only part of the image, but animations that rely on special clearing behavior between frames may show leftovers from earlier frames in the exported PNGs.
A GIF with hundreds of frames creates hundreds of thumbnails, which uses a good amount of memory and may be slow on a phone. Long or high-resolution animations are best handled on a desktop browser.
If the file is damaged or is not really a GIF, you will see a "Couldn't read that GIF file" message. Frame timing is not shown, since the output is only the images.