Recently, when I was trying to download a gif file from Giphy, I noticed that when I went directly to the file, https://media.giphy.com/media/14kdiJUblbWBXy/giphy.gif for example, that it was actually loading a web page instead of the gif file.
Now, on this page, you could choose to alternative/right click on the image and then click “Save Image”. But, this will download the image with a .webp extension. From there, you can choose to change the extension to .gif if you’d like. But, I’ll be honest and tell you that I didn’t consider switching the extension at first. So, I dug further.
I figured that Giphy was probably detecting that based on who/where the request was coming from, so I tried downloading the gif file by running a cURL command. This worked, but it’s not convenient to have to open up a terminal window to run a cURL command.
Luckily, a kind person left a very helpful comment below with an even simpler approach, which I think is the simplest approach overall.
Simple approach
When we go to a standard Giphy source URL, like https://media.giphy.com/media/14kdiJUblbWBXy/giphy.gif, a web page is loaded instead of the gif that we want. Now, the only thing we have to change for the actual gif to load is to change media.giphy.com to i.giphy.com.
So, if we take the above example, we could load the actual gif by going to https://i.giphy.com/media/14kdiJUblbWBXy/giphy.gif
From here, we can alternate/right click to download the gif with the correct extension and go on about our day.
Downloading via cURL
curl https://media.giphy.com/media/KXgJsSeOfvSgg/giphy.gif --output ~/Desktop/download.gifThis resulted in the actual gif file that I wanted being placed on my Desktop as download.gif.
76 responses to “How to download a gif from Giphy”
Thanks for this. I dont know why Giphy just doesn’t allow you to get a GIF file as need, instead they force another format. The command worked as expected.
I’m on the computer and I just right-clicked and clicked “save image as…” It saved the gif as a gif and not an image
This works, but when I upload it to my WordPress site the gif displays as a static image?
Embed it at full size and it should work as an animated gif as expected.
This is likely a WEBP that’s pretending to be a GIF. I have a FFMPEG script that fixes these for me when I find one.
Don’t open the gif, download from the thumbnail, right click save as gif… easy peasy
You are the greatest man, thank you
Thank you!
OK, noob question, but is running a cURL command different than pasting into a browser? Instead of a download, I’m directed to search results on that address. (Tried three browsers and several default search engines) . Thanks!
Hi Joe – Yes, running a cURL command is different than pasting into the browser. On a Mac, you’ll need to run this from the
Terminalapp, or some other similar program. If you’re on a PC, there should be an equivalent there as well, though I haven’t had a PC in a while.Awesome (or as Keanu would say it, “Whoa”) . https://media.giphy.com/media/daAsPFgZkW9iM/giphy.gif
Thanks!
Ya they properly check request header with the origin flag
Baller. Exactly what I wanted.
Hello how can I do this for Mac Os
Hello Tosin,
Open up the “Terminal” app, copy and paste the command above (being sure to replace the URL with that of the GIF that you want) into the “Terminal” app, then hit enter. Afterwards, the GIF should be available on your Desktop.
I right clicked on the Gif from Giphy > Save to (Google) Keep> Then from Keep, Right clicked gif then > Save. It default saves as .gif. I have a label created for GIFS in Keep. You can also do this for your Google Drive but may have to go through keep first. Of course you have to have the Google Keep Extension and chrome app. If you don’t have Keep, you should. BTW- Did this from PC Windows…. More than one way to skin a fish.
You rock!!!!!
Really appreciated, my man!!
Oh my god, thank you so much, that was clear and to the point, even for non-tech people 🙂
???? Dude! MUCH APPRECIATED!
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 –:–:– –:–:– –:–:– 0Warning: Failed to create the file ~/Desktop/download.gif: No such file or
Warning: directory
0 1201k 0 5484 0 0 5484 0 0:03:44 –:–:– 0:03:44 167k
curl: (23) Failed writing body (0 != 5484)
i got this only
I also got this message when trying to run the cmd prompt in Windows.
ALTERNATELY, RIGHT CLICK THE GIF AND CHOOSE SAVE IMAGE AS…… ******FACEPALM
We don’t want the image, we want the gif.
Hey Levy,
A gif is a type of image. If you right click and “save image as”, you should be able to save the animated gif file.
It saves as a still image, but thanks.
Hi Eric, Thanks. I am on a Mac-book. What is a cURL and where do I find the “TERMINAL” that you refer to?
go into your launchpad, and terminal should be in there. Mine was inside launchpad, in an “Others” folder
Just disable java script
Another hack seems to be if you replace the “https://media” in a link with “i,” you get a direct link to the gif that can be dragged to the desktop. For example, turn
https://media.giphy.com/media/vLruErVSYGx8s/giphy.gif
into
i.giphy.com/media/vLruErVSYGx8s/giphy.gif
Tally ho!
This is beautiful! Thanks for leaving a comment with the suggestion.
You YES YOU! This rocks.
I’m having the same issue- the file is downloading as a web page when I right click on it. I tried your command and it downloaded a file that is a .gif, but when I open it, it opens in preview and just shows all the photos as layers. I tried in in photoshop as well and it did the same thing. Thanks for your help,
Instead of opening in preview, try opening in a browser like Chrome. This should play the gif file for you.
Hello, I was struggling with that for a while because everytime i open the gif I downloaded, it just opened up each frames as images, but I then realized it’s only doing that because Mac’s opening the file in Preview, and it can’t display gifs. Just ignore that, your file is still a gif, and if you send it to someone/somewhere, it will still display as a moving gif.
What a great piece of expert advice.
Key to the whole thing for Mac Users is this:
Open up the “Terminal” app, copy and paste the command above (being sure to replace the URL with that of the GIF that you want) into the “Terminal” app, then hit enter. Afterwards, the GIF should be available on your Desktop.
I had never come across Terminal before (in fact nore anything else in the utilities folder).
Thank you for the knowhow.
Thank you so much! It worked 🙂
¡Genial truco, gracias por compartir!
Worked for me too..!! Nice find mate.
Thank you!!!
i.giphy.com worked perfectly. Thank you for this:)
On windows you can just type this in your search bar; https://i.giphy.com/media/INSERT GIF URL HERE/giphy.gif
From there you just get the raw GIF that you can save, drag or whatever else you may want to do with it
Thanks man…..
This really saved me a lot of stress.
I’m so grateful
Cheers i was trying for ages to figure out how to download gifs from giphy
Thanks a lot!! Choose the option for replacing “media” with “I”. Still works like a charm
i.giphy.com/media/m2Q7FEc0bEr4I/giphy.gif
Thanks a lot!
I appreciate this!
In the save as window, use quotation marks to force the extension – “filename.gif” – this should tell the OS to ignore the .webp part. Works in Windows 10.
Thank you so much!
Thanks! You have just saved me hours
Thanks man. You are a hero.
Thank you!!
Amazing, great, you are my hero
Thanks… so simple and it works!
Thank you
OMG! Thank u!
THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
+REP
+REP
+REP
+REP
+REP
+REP
I WISH I COULD HUG YOU!! Thank you so much 🙂
i just got this error
curl https://media.giphy.com/media/KXgJsSeOfvSgg/giphy.gif –output ~/Desktop/download.gif
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 –:–:– –:–:– –:–:– 0Warning: Failed to create the file ~/Desktop/download.gif: No such file or
Warning: directory
0 793k 0 1371 0 0 1371 0 0:09:52 0:00:01 0:09:51 1253
curl: (23) Failed writing body (0 != 1371)
C:\Users\Nixs News Tamil>curl https://media.giphy.com/media/KXgJsSeOfvSgg/giphy.gif –output ~/Documents/download.gif
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 –:–:– –:–:– –:–:– 0Warning: Failed to create the file ~/Documents/download.gif: No such file or
Warning: directory
0 793k 0 4113 0 0 4113 0 0:03:17 –:–:– 0:03:17 4621
curl: (23) Failed writing body (0 != 4113)
how to overcome this
hi i just did in another method… if is useful kindly include in post..
i used online wepb to gif convertor to download it by entering url of giphy media
right on, thanks a million!
The simple approach worked great. It took me a bit to figure out I needed to paste the Giphy URL into a browser bar in order to edit it they way you describe before I copied and pasted it into my Shopify email marketing image upload section. Much appreciated.
Bwahahahahahaaaa. screw you Giphy.. this works perfectly FINALLY back to being normal. Thank you!
The URLs I get from Giphy.com have a totally different format. If I copy the link address, I get https://giphy.com/gifs/starwars-movie-star-wars-l1AsPDzmgSdwDG7v2. If I copy the image address, I get https://media0.giphy.com/media/l1AsPDzmgSdwDG7v2/100.webp?cid=ecf05e473qpyr8bd70odw41c0wmy2wzbvfj28og204g5q5yt&rid=100.webp&ct=g. If I copy the image, I get something that I can’t even paste into here. Do you have advice on how to mangle either of the above style URLs into something Google Slides likes? thanks.
I was able to simply replace the first part of the url that says “media0.giphy…” with just the “i.giphy… and this method worked once more! ;P
There is no save image as option….WTF?
Why does this website make it so fucking hard to just download a simple .gif file???? GRRRRRRRRRRR
I don’t know who you are or where you’re from BUT OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH!
So helpful!
I’m on a desktop and changed the format to “i.giphy.com” but when I right click on the giphy it isn’t giving me a download option
Thank you kind human for this!
Best
THANK YOU!!!!Q
Thank you so much!! I am editing a video and I needed this MEME! God bless you! ^_^
I’m on Android and what worked for me was clicking the 3 dots (…) under the gif and it pops out and lists the tags used and the options to report the gif or cancel. Long click the gif here to download and it gives it to you in .gif form.
Thanks you soo much for this tip I was going crazy trying to find how to do this on the web no where is there info on how to do this with mobile or on android when I tired to search for it send gifs as a message and always convert webd to pic every time
Thanks!! 🙂
I absolutely adore you Eric! Now I can add a testimonial wall to my client’s website which from his customers that post primarily videos from IG.
The “i.giphy” method no longer works on Android. It just results in the same “webp” files. I suspect Giphy has updated their site to stop regular people downloading gifs from their gif website.