Add Subtitles to GIF

A GIF has no selectable subtitle track and carries no audio. To add dialogue or an explanation, draw the words into the image frames. This tool takes a static or animated GIF and burns one caption into every frame. Choose your file, type the words, select top, center or bottom placement, and render the result. The preview shows the actual exported animation, so review a full loop before downloading.

White or yellow lettering with a black outline helps the words remain legible over changing backgrounds. Keep captions brief, particularly on small reaction GIFs. The font size is measured in source-image pixels, rather than the size of the preview on your screen. Long captions wrap and may use a smaller font to fit. If the words cannot fit, shorten the caption or use a larger source. Separate lines with Enter when you need a deliberate line break.

The caption remains visible throughout the clip. There is no automatic transcription, translation or per-cue timing input. For different dialogue at different times, use an editor with a caption timeline. For MP4 and SRT files, use the separate video tool. A GIF caption is part of the pixels and cannot be switched off in a player.

The renderer decodes each GIF frame, applies its disposal rule, draws the caption and encodes a full frame. This includes animations that use small frame patches, transparency or restore-to-previous disposal. The output keeps the source canvas dimensions and number of frames. Declared frame delays and loop count are carried into the exported GIF. Very short or unspecified delays may play differently between GIF viewers, so compare the result in the application where you will share it.

GIF uses a palette of at most 256 colors per frame and one-bit transparency. Re-encoding with text creates new palettes. Gradients, photographs and antialiased edges can change slightly, and output size can increase. This is an editing tool rather than a compression guarantee. Check fine details and transparent edges in the preview. Keep the original if its color fidelity matters more than the added caption.

A static GIF is supported and stays a single-frame GIF. An animated source remains animated. Transparent areas remain transparent outside the caption, while the lettering and its outline add visible pixels. Download the result as a new file so the source stays available.

Choose a complete GIF up to 10 MB, with at most 120 frames, one million pixels per frame and 24 million total frame pixels. The total is canvas width multiplied by canvas height multiplied by frame count. These limits keep memory use bounded on mobile devices. A 500 by 500 animation with 80 frames fits the total-pixel limit; a 1000 by 1000 animation with 80 frames does not. Invalid signatures, incomplete files and frames outside the declared canvas are rejected before rendering.

The page reports frame progress and provides a Cancel button. Keep the tab open until the preview appears. Cancel stops between frames. Processing may be slower on a phone because palette generation runs on the device. If the browser cannot allocate the frame buffers, use a smaller source or a desktop browser. No processing server receives your source GIF or caption text.

All file, text and style controls support keyboard input. Use Tab to move through controls, Enter or Space to activate buttons, and the native select controls to change placement or color. Status and error messages appear alongside the workbench. If the download fails, the generated result remains available for another attempt.