How to Add a GIF in Slack: Picker, /giphy and Uploads

To add a GIF in Slack, click the smiley face icon in the message field, click GIFs, search for a GIF, click the one you want, and press Send. On iPhone or Android, tap the message field, tap the smiley face, then GIFs. The GIF picker is built into Slack and powered by GIPHY, so you do not need to install anything. If you do not see GIFs, an owner or admin has turned the picker off; you can still upload a GIF file.

Slack also has the older /giphy command, which needs the GIPHY app, and you can upload your own GIF or turn one into an animated emoji. All five ways are below.

To make a GIF of your own, the free Slack emoji maker works as a Slack GIF creator in the browser, covered below.

Five ways to put a GIF in Slack

Send a GIF with the Slack GIF picker

On desktop:

• Click in the message field of a channel or DM.
• Click the smiley face icon in the message field.
• Click GIFs at the top of the menu.
• Type a word, such as "thank you" or "coffee", and click a GIF.
• Add text if you want, then press Send or Enter.

On iPhone or Android:

• Tap the message field to open the keyboard.
• Tap the smiley face icon, then GIFs.
• Search, tap a GIF, and tap Send.

A faster way on desktop: type /gif in the message field and press Enter. It is one of Slack's built-in slash commands and opens the same picker. The full list is in Slack slash commands.

The GIF is added to your message before it goes out, so you can type a line to go with it. This is the "GIF keyboard" people ask about. Slack does not use your phone's own GIF keyboard; the picker inside Slack is the one that works in every app version.

Use the /giphy command

Before the picker, GIFs in Slack came from the GIPHY app and its slash command. It still works if your workspace has the app:

• Type /giphy and a word, for example /giphy high five, and press Enter.
• Slack shows a preview that only you can see.
• Click Shuffle for a different GIF, Send to post it, or Cancel.

If Slack says /giphy is not a valid command, the app is not installed. A member can request it from the GIPHY page in the Slack Marketplace, and an admin approves it. Admins can also set the app's content rating in its settings.

Upload your own GIF

Drag a .gif file from your computer into the message field, or click + in the message field and choose Upload from your computer. On a phone, tap + and pick the GIF from your photos or files. Slack plays uploaded GIFs in the conversation like picker GIFs.

To share a GIF you found on the web, copy its link from GIPHY or Tenor and paste it into the message. Slack shows the GIF under the link unless you turned off previews in Preferences, Messages & media.

Make a GIF emoji for Slack

A GIF can also become a custom emoji that anyone in the workspace can use in messages, reactions and statuses:

Click the smiley face icon in the message field, then Add Emoji.

Click Upload Image and choose your GIF.

Give it a name, such as party-parrot, and click Save.

Slack shrinks every emoji to 128 by 128 pixels. A GIF that is still too large after that shrink is refused with "This image is a bit too big, even after resizing". Slack's help center says up to 50 frames, but in our upload test a 60-frame GIF kept all 60 frames. The numbers are in how to add custom emoji to Slack, which also covers who can add emoji. To shrink a GIF that Slack refuses, use the Slack emoji resizer.

Make your own Slack GIF with a free GIF creator

A Slack GIF creator turns a picture, a GIF or a few words into an animated GIF that Slack takes as an emoji. Two free ones are below. For a GIF in a message, any GIF up to Slack's file limit works, so these matter most for emoji.

The Slack emoji maker, in the browser. Open the Slack emoji maker, pick Image to emoji or Text to emoji, and drop in a PNG, JPG, GIF or WebP. Crop it to a square, tick Remove background if it sits on a plain color, and pick an effect such as intensifies, spin, party or bounce. Each effect thumbnail shows the size of that GIF. With the sample frog the nine effects came out between 24.4 KB and 90.9 KB, all 128 by 128. Check the preview at 16, 22 and 32 pixels, then download the GIF. The file never leaves your computer. For a photo, the crop and size steps are in make a Slack emoji from a picture.

Claude's slack-gif-creator skill. Anthropic's public skills repository has a skill named slack-gif-creator. Claude draws each frame with Pillow from a description such as "a green dot that pulses", then saves the GIF with the skill's GIFBuilder. In Claude Code you install it with:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills
/plugin install example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills

We ran the skill's code on 7 October 2026 (repository commit 683bc88, Python with Pillow, imageio and numpy). This draws a pulsing green dot:

import math
from PIL import Image, ImageDraw
from core.gif_builder import GIFBuilder
from core.validators import validate_gif

builder = GIFBuilder(width=128, height=128, fps=10)
for i in range(12):
    frame = Image.new("RGB", (128, 128), (255, 255, 255))
    draw = ImageDraw.Draw(frame)
    r = 45 * (0.8 + 0.2 * math.sin(i / 11 * 2 * math.pi))  # pulse
    draw.ellipse([64 - r, 64 - r, 64 + r, 64 + r], fill=(34, 197, 94))
    builder.add_frame(frame)

builder.save("emoji.gif", num_colors=48, optimize_for_emoji=True)
ok, info = validate_gif("emoji.gif", is_emoji=True, verbose=False)
print(ok, round(info["size_kb"], 1), "KB", info["frame_count"], "frames")

True 4.0 KB 10 frames

The skill's validate_gif passes an emoji on its width and height only. We saved 60 frames of random pixels at 128 by 128 and it printed True 1354.2 KB 60 frames, for a file ten times Slack's 128 KB guideline. So check the size yourself before you upload:

ls -lh emoji.gif   # stay under 128K for an emoji

No GIFs option in Slack

• No GIFs tab in the smiley menu. An owner or admin turned off the GIF picker. On Free, Pro and Business+ plans, they turn it back on in Admin, Workspace settings, Attach a GIF, Enable the GIF picker. On Enterprise plans it is under Organization Settings, Attach a GIF. Slack notes that this setting does not stop people from uploading GIFs found elsewhere.

• /giphy is not a valid command. The GIPHY app is not installed, or an admin removed it.

• GIFs do not move. Animation is turned off in Preferences, Accessibility. Turn it back on to see GIFs and animated emoji play; every other cause is in Slack GIF not playing.

• The link shows no GIF. Link previews are off in Preferences, Messages & media. All the preview settings are in how to turn off link previews in Slack.

Every size limit, for GIFs in messages and GIF emoji, is in Slack GIF size limit.

FAQ

Does Slack have GIFs? Yes. The GIF picker is built in, under the smiley face icon in the message field, on all plans.

Is GIPHY free in Slack? Yes. The built-in picker uses GIPHY, and the GIPHY app for /giphy is free.

How do I send a GIF in a Slack thread? Open the thread, click the smiley face in the thread's message field, and use GIFs the same way.

Can I add a GIF to my Slack status? Only as an animated custom emoji. Add the GIF as an emoji first, then pick it as your status emoji.

Can admins turn off GIFs in Slack? They can turn off the GIF picker and remove the GIPHY app. Uploading a GIF file still works.