Eric Binnion

How to download a gif from Giphy

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Eric Binnion

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.gif

This resulted in the actual gif file that I wanted being placed on my Desktop as download.gif.

Comments

81 responses to “How to download a gif from Giphy”

  1. Daniel B Avatar
    Daniel B

    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.

    Reply
    1. ??? Avatar
      ???

      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

      Reply
      1. Matt Avatar
        Matt

        This works, but when I upload it to my WordPress site the gif displays as a static image?

        Reply
    2. Jssaab Avatar
      Jssaab

      Don’t open the gif, download from the thumbnail, right click save as gif… easy peasy

      Reply
  4. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    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!

    Reply
    1. Eric Binnion Avatar
      Eric Binnion

      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 Terminal app, 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.

      Reply
    1. Eric Binnion Avatar
      Eric Binnion

      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.

      Reply
  7. Charla Carlat Avatar
    Charla Carlat

    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.

    Reply
  10. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    Oh my god, thank you so much, that was clear and to the point, even for non-tech people 🙂

    Reply
  12. Peter Avatar
    Peter

    % 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

    Reply
      1. Eric Binnion Avatar
        Eric Binnion

        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.

        Reply
  14. Maddy Avatar
    Maddy

    Hi Eric, Thanks. I am on a Mac-book. What is a cURL and where do I find the “TERMINAL” that you refer to?

    Reply
    1. Yuki Avatar
      Yuki

      go into your launchpad, and terminal should be in there. Mine was inside launchpad, in an “Others” folder

      Reply
  17. Beth Coller Avatar
    Beth Coller

    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,

    Reply
    2. Yuki Avatar
      Yuki

      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.

      Reply
  18. HarbroHouse Avatar
    HarbroHouse

    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.

    Reply
  25. Elijah Ayandokun Avatar
    Elijah Ayandokun

    Thanks man…..
    This really saved me a lot of stress.
    I’m so grateful

    Reply
  27. Rob Avatar
    Rob

    Thanks a lot!! Choose the option for replacing “media” with “I”. Still works like a charm
    i.giphy.com/media/m2Q7FEc0bEr4I/giphy.gif

    Reply
  30. A Numann Avatar
    A Numann

    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.

    Reply
  41. Tamil News Avatar
    Tamil News

    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

    Reply
  42. Diwakaran Avatar
    Diwakaran

    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

    Reply
  44. MGF Avatar
    MGF

    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.

    Reply
  46. Dan A Lambeth Avatar
    Dan A Lambeth

    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.

    Reply
    1. Jason Avatar
      Jason

      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

      Reply
  48. Andreea Avatar
    Andreea

    I don’t know who you are or where you’re from BUT OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH!
    So helpful!

    Reply
  49. Ashleigh G Avatar
    Ashleigh G

    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

    Reply
  52. Priyanshu Bharadwa Avatar
    Priyanshu Bharadwa

    Thank you so much!! I am editing a video and I needed this MEME! God bless you! ^_^

    Reply
  53. Monica Avatar
    Monica

    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.

    Reply
  54. Erik Avatar
    Erik

    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

    Reply
  56. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    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.

    Reply
  57. Primal. Avatar
    Primal.

    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.

    Reply
    1. Michael J. Walls Avatar
      Michael J. Walls

      Thank you for this simple solution. I don’t know if it varies from Mac to PC, but the right click method only yields a still image. The alternative works great! Much appreciated!

      Reply
  58. Shrawan Choudhary Avatar
    Shrawan Choudhary

    Nowa days, It is not working. You should try something new new that can help other to download a gif from giphy. I suspect Giphy has updated their site to stop regular people downloading gifs from their gif website.

    Reply
  59. Samus, Avatar
    Samus,

    An even more easier option and one that works 100% to download GIFs from the GIPHY website (on Android at least) is to go to the gif you want to download, click on the “Send/Share” button (looks like an paper airplane) that’s under the GIF and then click and hold on the gif until the download window pops-up.
    You’re welcome.

    Reply

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