How to convert GIF to TIFF without uploading it
Every "free" online GIF converter you've used uploads your files to a company server, converts them there, and — in several documented cases — keeps a copy or a live download link for hours. For old graphics, logos and animations you wouldn't post publicly, that's an unnecessary risk. The safer approach is to convert the file where it already is: on your own device.
This tool does exactly that. When you drop a GIF here, your browser:
- Decodes the GIF in the browser with a small built-in decoder (omggif), compositing every frame — disposal methods and the transparent palette index honoured — so an animation's frames come out exactly as they display.
- Flattens transparency onto your background colour — white by default — because TIFF output here is 8-bit RGB with no alpha channel.
- Re-encodes the pixels as a TIFF with a pure-JavaScript TIFF encoder — little-endian header, one IFD per frame, LZW, PackBits or no compression, and the DPI you chose written as XResolution and YResolution tags. Your original file is never modified.
What makes this converter different
The converters that top the results for this search mostly upload your files to a server (mapree.dev converts server-side, imageconverters.net is a hub of server-side tools, and imageconvertit caps free conversions at 3 files unless you pay for Pro), and the client-side ones we found are thin — PureConverter runs in the browser but offers no compression choice and no way to keep an animation's frames, and none of them combines a batch of 20 files with a ZIP download, animated-GIF to multi-page TIFF conversion, a genuine compression choice (LZW by default, PackBits or uncompressed), DPI tags from 72 to 600, and a live network-request counter so you can verify the privacy claim yourself. This page is the only dedicated GIF-to-TIFF page we found that does all of that. It runs entirely in your browser — there is no server to upload to, no daily limits, no account and no watermark.
When is TIFF the right choice for a GIF?
When the destination demands it: print shops and scanning bureaus that ask for TIFF, archives that store images losslessly, and layout software (InDesign, QuarkXPress and their peers) that places TIFFs at a stated DPI. TIFF is also the format for multi-page scans — one file, one page per image — and for keeping every frame of an old animation in a single archival file. For anything else — sharing, web, storage — keep the GIF or use GIF to PNG instead and keep the smaller file.
Files are checked by their contents, not their name: a GIF saved as .txt still converts, because the GIF87a/GIF89a header is what matters, while a PNG renamed to .gif is refused with a pointer to the matching converter. A corrupt or truncated GIF is refused at decode time, with a per-file error explaining what happened.
Honest limitations
No colour recovery
GIF is capped at 256 colours. A TIFF holds the same decoded pixels, losslessly — it cannot add colour or detail the GIF never had. Flat-colour web graphics stay flat-colour graphics, only bigger.
TIFFs are much larger than GIFs
Expect roughly 20× the size per frame for an uncompressed TIFF of a graphic, less with LZW — and an animated GIF multiplies that by its frame count. Every file shows its size multiple honestly, and the batch bar shows the total before you download anything.
8-bit RGB only
Output is 8-bit RGB — no 16-bit, no CMYK, no alpha channel. Transparency is flattened onto the background colour you pick, because that is what the format here supports.
Animation becomes still pages
TIFF has no animation: frame delays are dropped, and an animated GIF becomes one still page per frame. The pages are in frame order, but the TIFF does not play.
Multi-page TIFFs are not universal
Multi-page TIFFs open in most viewers, but some old software shows only the first page. If the destination is old or unknown, use first-frame-only mode or send one TIFF per file instead.
DPI is only a tag
The DPI you pick never changes the pixels — it only records how large the image prints. A 72-DPI tag on a 4000-pixel graphic still prints large; the pixels are what they are.
Metadata is stripped
GIF metadata (comments, application extensions, loop count) is dropped on re-encode. The loop count goes with the frame delays — the TIFF keeps the frames, not the playback instructions. There is no text layer, no OCR, and nothing searchable is added.
Very long animations get big
Every frame is a full page of pixels. A 100-frame animation at 1920×1080 is 100 pages of TIFF — hundreds of megabytes uncompressed, tens of megabytes with LZW. Short clips and old graphics are the sweet spot; trim long animations first if the TIFF comes out too large.