YouTube is testing a GIF making feature

Everyone loves a good GIF, and in many cases they’re a lot better for displaying your reaction online than something more basic like an emoticon. The problem is that making good GIFs isn’t that easy, which is why its great YouTube is testing its own GIF-making tools.

It seems that it’s a very limited test run because according to Gizmodo, the only channel with the feature enabled is the PBS Ideas Channel. But the tools themselves are pretty easy to use. All you have to do is click ‘Share’ then ‘GIF’ and they will appear below the video. From there you can either scroll through the video frame by frame to find the part you want to GIFify, or you can enter in the exact times yourself.

You do have the option of adding in your own text, in a similar style to most memes, but the GIFs themselves appear to be limited to a length of six seconds or less.

It’s not exactly clear what YouTube wants to do with the tools, but they are lovely ways to make GIFs and it would be fantastic to see them rolled out to move channels across the site. Cat GIFs will never be the same again.