Here's How You Can Share GIFs on Facebook

Post GIFs in Your Status or in a Private Message

Photo Caiaimage / Sam Edwards / Getty Images
Updated April 20, 2017

You don't have to be a huge social media junkie to know that animated GIF images are a wildly popular form of content to be shared all over the Internet these days. While some major social networks like Tumblr and Twitter have really embraced the trend, Facebook has been a bit slow to support GIF animation on its platform.

If you previously wanted to share a GIF on Facebook, you had to post a link to an external page and get your friends to visit it to see the fully animated image.

Thanks to some updates from the social network, you longer have to do this.

Here's what you need to know about sharing GIFs on Facebook so all your friends will be able to see the moving images directly in their own News Feeds.

Recommended: How to Use Imgur to Make a GIF from a Video

What You Can and Can't Do with Sharing GIFs on Facebook

Facebook has made it super easy for you to share GIFs, but there are some limitations.

You can:

  • Find a link to a GIF hosted on another site, like Imgur or Giphy.
  • Copy and paste the link into your status, which will automatically detect that it's an animation and will place a GIF icon over it.
  • Post it so it will be seen as fully animated when it shows up in your friends' feeds.
  • Adjust your auto-play video settings so that either the GIF will play automatically inline or show the GIF icon until a viewer clicks or taps to play it.

You can't:

  • Upload an existing GIF image from your computer or device to post as an animated image on Facebook.
  • Post a GIF to a Facebook brand page or in an ad.

If you're interested in looking for more great GIFs to share with your friends, check out this list of places to find some of the funniest GIFs online.

Sharing GIFs in Facebook Messages

Facebook Messenger is one of the easiest and most popular ways to get in touch with friends privately, but Facebook itself doesn't have any functionality to support GIFs through this feature.

You can, however, download the Giphy app for iPhone or Android, which was made specifically to work with helping you easily insert GIFs into Facebook Messenger. You can use the app to choose one of their top trending apps or use the search function to find a specific one.

Once you've found a great GIF you want to include in a message, just tap "Send" at the bottom and Giphy will transfer it to your conversation in the Messenger app. For a clearer step-by-step process, check out Giphy's instructions here.

Your friends don't need to have the Giphy for Messenger app installed in order to see your GIFs, but if you enjoy chatting back and forth with GIFs a lot more than with plain text, you may want to recommend that they download the app as well so they can start sending you their favorite GIFs when responding to your messages.

More Great GIF Resources: