Twitter Raises GIF File Size Limit To Generous 15MB

Fans of animated GIFs (pronounced with a soft "G," according to Steve Wilhite, inventor of the Graphics Interchange Format) have reason to rejoice. Twitter has silently bumped up the file size limit for posting GIFs to 15MB on the web, which is triple the amount of the original 5MB limit. Expect to see more animated GIFs as a result of the change.

Posting GIFs on Twitter is already a popular thing to do. According to Twitter, its users shared over 100 million GIFs in 2015, which prompted the microblogging site to add a GIF search function in early 2016.


"Whenever you’re composing a Tweet or Direct Message, you can search and browse the GIF library. So if you’re looking for the perfect cat yawn or dance move to express exactly how you feel, just click the new GIF button. You can search by keyword, or browse categories of different reactions like Happy Dance, Mic Drop, or YOLO," Twitter stated at the time.

Previously the file size limit of 5MB applied to both photos and animated GIFs. Photos still have a ceiling of 5MB, and if you're on a mobile device, the 5MB limit still applies to GIFs as well. But if you're posting to Twitter from your PC, you can now post bigger size GIFs, up to 15MB.

This is the latest example of Twitter relaxing its rules. Images and usernames used to count against the service's 140-character limit, but that's no longer the case. And just last month Twitter announced support for 140-second Vine video uploads, a massive jump from the previous limit of 6 seconds. Same goes for in-stream videos—they can be up to 140 seconds long.