Categories: Tutorials

Animated GIFs Not Working In WordPress? Here’s The Fix

Animated GIFs can be a great way to add some life to your WordPress site. But it’s frustrating when they don’t work as expected. If you’re seeing Animated GIFs Not Working In WordPress, don’t worry – we’ll walk you through some easy fixes to get them up and running. Let’s dive in!

There’s a common issue in WordPress where animated GIFs don’t seem to work properly.

Usually the image shows up—but it’s just a static frame, rather than a properly looping GIF.

Sound familiar?

If you’re experiencing this problem, it’s likely because WordPress is cropping the GIF to one of its predetermined image sizes (e.g. thumbnail, medium, or large).

This works fine for static images (JPEG, PNG, etc.), but when WordPress crops an animated GIF, it just grabs a single frame from the image, killing the animation.

The Solution

https://youtu.be/R8OZJV_SZoU

The solution is simple: when you add a GIF to a post or page, be sure to include the full size version of the image.

Here’s what that looks like in the block editor:

Select your image block and make sure the image size is set to “Full Size.”

Once you’ve done this, you should find that your GIF starts animating as intended.

If you have any questions about using animated GIFs in WordPress, feel free to leave them in the comments below!

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Brad Merrill

Brad Merrill is the CEO of Merrill Media and Editor in Chief of GigaPress.

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View Comments

Misty says:

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THANK YOU!
Caroline says:

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Thanks you are a life saver !!!!!
Robert says:

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THNKS!!!! 🥳
Mosiah says:

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Resize image with css code and solved problem.
C T says:

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I'm not seeing an option to change to Full Size. In "Edit Image", I am only seeing "Scale Image" (with fields to enter new dimensions), "Image Crop" (with fields to enter an aspect ratio and selection), and "Thumbnail Settings".
- Brad Merrill says:
  
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  Hey there -- you actually don't need to edit the image itself. The size selection should appear in the right sidebar when you select the image block while editing a post. Check out the video above for a closer look.
  - Sameer says:
    
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    No, I can't find that eighter!
Lenora Lostaunau says:

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Awesome. Easy fix for the problem and my vexed brain!
BeaG says:

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Hi,
I have 4 animated GIFs on my blog. They worked fine untill 4 days ago.
They consist of pages that show 0.2 seconds and 1 page that shows 10 seconds. That worked (ever since I posted the first one in July).
Problem: suddenly the 10 seconds page now also shows 0.2 seconds (and my readers are unable to read the text).
How and why does it suddenly overrule the time I set?
And how do I fix this?
I have a stand alone blog (Wordpress.com) en use the Neve theme (not the most recent version, since I will lose my changes if I update my theme).
I am by no means a programmer, just an amateur user. But up until this problem I had everything working just fine.
Here's a link to one of the posts with an animated GIF: https://www.beagblog.com/bg-89-found-words/
I would appreciate your help.
Kind regards,
BeaG (Belgium)
- BeaG says:
  
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  Okay, so I found a solution (or better: a work-around). I replaced the 10 seconds pages with 20 identical 0.5 second pages. And now my animated GIFs display properly on my Blog again. I still have no idea what caused the issue. But for now this works.
  Kind regards,
  BeaG (Belgium)
  - polistra says:
    
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    Thanks for your workaround. I've got the same problem. I often make long frames to mark the start and end of a sequence or to allow reading time. WP is cutting the long frames down to the same length as the shorter frames. I'll try your workaround.
Michael Lytle says:

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Thanks! That fixed it.
- Brad Merrill says:
  
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  Awesome, glad it helped!