GIF background remover

Remove the background from an animated GIF when that background is plain: a solid colour, a soft gradient or a green screen. The tool picks the background colour from the edge of the picture, then clears every pixel that is connected to the edge and close to that colour, on every frame, and saves a transparent GIF. It does not recognise people or objects, so a busy photo background will not come out clean. Nothing is uploaded.

Free · no sign-up · runs in your browser

Drop a GIF hereor click to choose a file

GIF only · up to 25 MB · up to 300 frames · nothing is uploaded

Works on plain or near-plain backgrounds: solid colours, simple gradients and green screens. A busy photo background will not come out clean, because the tool compares colours and does not recognise objects.

GIF transparency is on or off, so soft edge pixels are blended with this colour. Set it to the colour behind the GIF.

Result on a checkerboard

The preview appears here.

After

Your new GIF appears here.

How to use it

  1. Drop your GIF

    Drop a GIF with a plain background onto the box or click to choose one. Up to 25 MB and 300 frames. The preview shows the result on a checkerboard.

  2. Check the background colour

    The tool picks the most common colour along the edge. Click a background pixel in the frame to pick another colour, or type a hex value. If the edge is not one colour, you will see a warning.

  3. Set tolerance and edges

    Raise the tolerance until the background is gone, but not so far that the subject starts to go. Edge cleanup trims the pale halo next to the cut, and feather softens the edge.

  4. Remove and download

    Press Remove background. The transparent GIF appears next to the preview with its size and dimensions, and Download saves it.

Examples made with this tool

Each example removes the background from one of our own GIFs with the settings shown. The original is on the left and the result is on the right, on a checkerboard so you can see what is transparent.

  • The original for this example. A brown teddy bear holding a heart with its background removedOriginal
    A brown teddy bear holding a heart with its background removedBackground removed
    A sticker-style bear on a near-white page. The fill starts at the edge and stops at the bear's dark outline, so the bear and the pink heart keep every pixel and only the background goes.Settings usedBackground colour #f7f6f6 picked from the edge (94% of the edge matches it), tolerance 40, cleanup 1 px, feather 1 px, matte #ffffff. Output 320 × 320 px.GIF 498 KB (320 × 320 px) → GIF 354 KB (320 × 320 px), 16 frames
  • The original for this example. A smiling sun with a Good Morning label on a transparent backgroundOriginal
    A smiling sun with a Good Morning label on a transparent backgroundBackground removed
    A thin pale outline is still visible around the sun. It is a little further from the background colour than the tolerance allows, so it stays. Raise the tolerance or the edge cleanup to remove more of it, and lower them to keep it.Settings usedBackground colour #fefefe picked from the edge (77% of the edge matches it), tolerance 40, cleanup 1 px, feather 1 px, matte #ffffff. Output 320 × 320 px.GIF 584 KB (320 × 320 px) → GIF 478 KB (320 × 320 px), 16 frames
  • The original for this example. A white cat with an OK speech bubble on a transparent background, with its white fur keptOriginal
    A white cat with an OK speech bubble on a transparent background, with its white fur keptBackground removed
    The cat's fur is white, the same colour as the page, but the outline closes it in, so the fill never reaches it and the fur stays white. The grey shadow under the cat is darker than the page, so it stays too. That is a limit of the method, not a setting.Settings usedBackground colour #f8f7f7 picked from the edge (100% of the edge matches it), tolerance 30, cleanup 1 px, feather 1 px, matte #ffffff. Output 320 × 320 px.GIF 337 KB (320 × 320 px) → GIF 276 KB (320 × 320 px), 16 frames
  • The original for this example. A laughing emoji with a green background removedOriginal
    A laughing emoji with a green background removedBackground removed
    A stand-in for a green-screen clip: we placed a transparent emoji GIF on flat green, then removed the green again. Tolerance 60 takes all of it. The darker green shadow under the emoji is further from the picked green, so it stays.Settings usedBackground colour #1ec85a picked from the edge (100% of the edge matches it), tolerance 60, cleanup 1 px, feather 1 px, matte #17141f. Output 320 × 320 px.GIF 317 KB (320 × 320 px) → GIF 292 KB (320 × 320 px), 16 frames

What the background remover does, step by step

The remover starts at the border of the picture. Every border pixel whose colour is close to the background colour is marked, and the mark spreads to the pixels above, below, left and right of it when they are close as well. The area it reaches is the background, and everything it cannot reach is kept. Closeness is the straight-line distance between two colours in red, green and blue, and the tolerance slider is that distance.

This runs on every frame separately, with the same colour and tolerance, so a clip with a steady background gives a steady cut. Because the spread only moves between touching pixels, a patch of the same colour inside the subject, such as a white eye or a tooth, is left alone unless you switch on clearing enclosed holes.

Which one do I need? Background remover or transparent GIF maker

Use the background remover when the background touches the edge of the picture and the subject has parts of the same colour inside it, such as a white cat on a white page or a logo with a white letter. It only removes what is connected to the edge, so it cannot punch holes into the subject.

Use the transparent GIF maker when you want one colour gone everywhere in the picture, for example a green screen with a gap through a handle, or a white page where you also want every white speck to disappear. It removes that colour wherever it appears, including inside the subject. If you are unsure, try the background remover first: it is the safer of the two.

Plain backgrounds only: what works and what does not

These work well: a solid colour, a green or blue screen, a plain studio sheet, a simple gradient when you raise the tolerance a little, and sticker-style graphics on white. These work badly: a photo of a room, a crowd, a sky with clouds, hair against a patterned wall, or any background that contains the same colours as the subject. The tool compares colours and nothing else. It does not find people, pets or objects.

Shadows are part of the picture. A soft shadow under a subject is darker than the background, so it usually stays. If the edge of the GIF is not one colour, you will see a warning with the share of the edge that matches the colour you picked. There is no per-frame object cut-out here, and we do not pretend otherwise.

Edges, halos and the matte colour

GIF transparency is on or off: a pixel is either fully there or fully gone. So the soft edge of a cut has to become one or the other. Edge cleanup removes pale halo pixels that sit next to the cut and are still close to the background colour, up to three pixels deep. Feather leaves one to three rings of semi-transparent pixels, and the GIF writer then keeps the ones that are at least half opaque and blends them with the matte colour.

Pick the matte colour to match the page the GIF will sit on. A GIF cut from a white page and placed on a dark page can show a pale fringe. Set the matte to the dark colour and the fringe blends in. The preview applies the same rule, so what you see on the checkerboard is the edge you will get.

Related tools

These tools work well with a GIF that has lost its background.

When a plain-background GIF needs to go transparent

  • A sticker for a chat or a document

    Cut a sticker-style GIF off its white background so it sits on any colour.

  • A logo on a coloured page

    Remove the flat background behind an animated logo before placing it on a coloured section.

  • A green-screen clip

    Key out the green behind something filmed on a green sheet.

  • Slides and videos

    Put a transparent animated element on a slide or over a video background.

  • A product loop

    Take a product turning on a plain white table off its backdrop.

How this tool works and its limits

This is what the tool does, and where it stops.

  • Your GIF never leaves your device. It is opened, processed and re-encoded in your browser, with no upload and no account.
  • GIFs up to 25 MB and 300 frames are accepted. The output is capped at 300 frames, 30 seconds and 1024 px on the longer side.
  • The background colour is one colour for the whole GIF. A background that changes colour from frame to frame, or a camera that moves across a gradient, will not come out clean.
  • Tolerance runs from 0 to 160, as a distance in RGB colour. Edge cleanup and feather each run from 0 to 3 px. Enclosed holes smaller than 16 pixels are never cleared.
  • GIF transparency is on or off. Soft edges are blended with the matte colour you choose, so set it to the colour of the page the GIF will sit on.
  • Shadows and reflections stay unless they are close to the background colour. The tool compares colours only, and it does not detect people or objects.
  • We built and tested the tool in current desktop Chrome. It uses ordinary canvas, workers and GIF decoding, and the list below checks your own browser live. We have not tested every browser.

Does your browser support this?

This list is checked against the browser you are using right now, by asking it directly. It is not a guess from the browser name.

  • GIF files: checking
  • Background encoding (Web Workers): checking

Questions, answered

How do I remove the background from a GIF?

Drop the GIF, check the background colour the tool picked from the edge, raise the tolerance until the background disappears in the preview, and press Remove background. Download the transparent GIF.

Does it work on any background?

No. It works on plain or near-plain backgrounds: solid colours, green screens and simple gradients. A busy photo background will not come out clean, because the tool compares colours and does not recognise objects.

Why did part of my subject disappear?

The tolerance is too high, or that part of the subject has the background colour and touches the edge. Lower the tolerance, or pick the background colour again from a clean spot.

Why is a light fringe left around my subject?

GIF transparency is on or off, so the soft edge has to be blended. Raise edge cleanup by a pixel or two, and set the matte colour to the colour of the page the GIF will sit on.

How is this different from the transparent GIF maker?

This tool removes only the background that is connected to the edge. The transparent GIF maker removes one colour everywhere in the picture. The section above helps you choose.

Is my GIF uploaded?

No. The GIF is processed on your device. Nothing is sent to a server and you need no account.