A sprite sheet stores animation frames in one image. Choose the correct grid, crop and frame delay to convert it to GIF. Zutilium’s Sprite Sheet to GIF works with equal-size cells in a regular rectangular grid. It reads them left to right, then top to bottom.

Open Sprite Sheet to GIF: Sprite Sheet to GIF

Check the sheet before setting the grid

Choose a PNG, JPG or WebP sheet up to 20 MiB. For a grid conversion, every frame must occupy the same-sized cell. A packed atlas with differently sized rectangles or an atlas JSON file is not supported. Gaps between cells are not removed by the outer-margin controls; prepare a gap-free grid first.

Look at the image dimensions and count the actual rows and columns. Outer whitespace can be cropped with Top, Bottom, Left and Right under Crop outer margins (px). These controls remove padding around the grid rather than inside it.

A worked eight-frame example

Suppose the sheet is 256 pixels wide and 128 pixels tall. It has four equal cells across and two rows, with no padding or gaps. Set:

Rows: 2
Columns: 4
Top, Bottom, Left and Right: 0
Frame delay (ms): 100

Each frame is 256 ÷ 4 = 64 pixels wide and 128 ÷ 2 = 64 pixels tall. The output frame is therefore 64 × 64 pixels. The sequence uses the four cells in the first row, followed by the four in the second.

With every frame included, a 100 ms delay gives 10 frames per second and an eight-frame loop lasts 800 ms, or 0.8 seconds. The GIF loops continuously. If you skip one frame, seven included frames at the same delay make a 0.7-second loop.

Watch Animation preview and the extraction grid on Sprite sheet. If a sprite is cut in half, correct the grid or margins before trying to align it. Position controls cannot fix a frame that was extracted from the wrong cell.

Keep one animation row

You can crop away other rows when the animation you need occupies one complete row. For example, consider a sheet 256 pixels tall with four rows of 64-pixel cells. To keep the third row, set Top to 128 and Bottom to 64. Set Rows to 1 and Columns to the number of frames across that row.

The remaining visible height is 256 − 128 − 64 = 64 pixels. Left and Right can remain zero if the row spans the full width. Check the preview before exporting. This selects a rectangular portion of the grid; it does not provide arbitrary frame ordering or a list of atlas coordinates.

Adjust a sprite that shifts between frames

Enable Lock object position when one sprite moves unintentionally within its cells. Bottom center (feet) aligns the detected object using a foot baseline; Center aligns visible bounds. This changes position, not pose or cell size.

For a transparent source, choose Transparent background under Object detection. For a consistent solid source background, choose Solid background color and set Sheet background color to that source color. This source setting is separate from GIF background, which fills the output’s transparent pixels. Automatic detection can work with transparency or a consistent frame-border color.

Use one object per cell when possible. Moving limbs, loose particles or inconsistent backgrounds can change the detected bounds. If details disappear, lower Background tolerance or adjust the source setting. Do not assume automatic locking will identify every frame equally well.

For a remaining offset, choose a frame in Frame editor. Drag the sprite, use the arrow buttons to nudge by one pixel, or enter X offset (px) and Y offset (px). Positive X moves right; positive Y moves down. These edits apply after locking and can also be used with locking disabled. Anything moved beyond the frame edge is cropped.

Skip blanks and understand resets

Choose Skip this frame to omit a blank or unwanted cell. At least one frame must stay included. Skipping keeps the relative order of the remaining cells; the tool does not support a custom sequence.

Reset position clears the selected frame’s offsets. Reset all edits clears offsets for every frame and includes skipped frames again. Changing the source image, grid or crop margins also resets edits. Changes to delay, background, locking, anchor or detection preserve the frame edits.

Fix clipping, timing and export problems

Match the grid to the pixels

If the cropped width or height is not evenly divisible by Columns or Rows, cell dimensions are rounded down. Remainder pixels on the right or bottom are excluded and reported in the preview summary. Adjust the grid or outer crop so the division matches your cells.

Set a supported delay and manageable grid

All included frames share one delay. The delay must be a multiple of 10 ms between 20 and 10,000 ms. For example, 50 ms is 20 frames per second. Unsupported timing values or invalid grid and margin settings block Generate GIF.

The tool allows at most 500 cells, up to 40 million source pixels and up to 16 million pixels across the full grid, including skipped cells. Each frame must be at most 2048 pixels per side. If encoding fails or takes too long, use a smaller source or fewer cells. Cancel stops an active export.

Export and check the palette

Choose GIF background, select Generate GIF and download the result. Transparency is flattened onto the chosen background, white by default. GIF palettes are limited to 256 colors, so gradients or rich illustrations can look different from the source. Check the downloaded animation for crop, alignment, timing and color changes.

The sheet, edits and GIF encoding stay in your browser. This tool does not upload the image or save the session for later. Download before leaving the page.

For separate image files, use Animated GIF Maker: Animated GIF Maker

For a video clip rather than a grid, use Video to GIF: Video to GIF