install

Additional install commands

macOS

Homebrewverified · 100%

brew install gifsicle

local Homebrew formula metadata

MacPortsverified · 94%

sudo port install gifsicle

MacPorts ports tree · graphics/gifsicle/Portfile · source: api.github.com

Linux

Alpine Linux apkverified · 92%

sudo apk add gifsicle

Alpine Linux edge package indexes · gifsicle · source: dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org

Debian aptverified · 92%

sudo apt install gifsicle

Debian stable package indexes · gifsicle · source: deb.debian.org

Fedora dnfverified · 92%

sudo dnf install gifsicle

Fedora Rawhide package metadata · gifsicle · source: dl.fedoraproject.org

Nixverified · 92%

nix profile install nixpkgs#gifsicle

nixpkgs package indexes · pkgs/by-name/gi/gifsicle/package.nix · source: api.github.com

Arch Linux pacmanverified · 92%

sudo pacman -S gifsicle

Arch Linux sync databases · gifsicle · source: geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com

openSUSE zypperverified · 92%

sudo zypper install gifsicle

openSUSE Tumbleweed package metadata · gifsicle · source: download.opensuse.org

Windows

Scoopverified · 92%

scoop install main/gifsicle

Scoop official bucket manifest trees · bucket/gifsicle.json · source: api.github.com

overview

Package summary

GIF image/animation creator/editor

Project links

Commands and aliases

gifdiff
gifsicle

history

Project history and usage

Gifsicle is Eddie Kohler's command-line toolkit for creating, editing, inspecting, comparing, and optimizing GIF images and animations.

Project history

Gifsicle's official change log records a first public release on June 12, 1997. The tool quickly added output naming, cropping, frame selection, colormap controls, dithering, optimization, gifview, and gifdiff, turning it from an animation assembler into a broad GIF manipulation suite.

The project kept evolving with portable source releases, Windows and DOS build support, BSD ports, MacPorts, and Homebrew. Later releases added deeper optimization heuristics, resizing, gamma-aware color selection, threading and SIMD for resizing, lossy optimization, security fixes, and newer color-space work.

Adoption history

Gifsicle became a standard command-line GIF optimizer because it handles details simple animation joiners do not: frame extraction, batch edits, logical screen handling, disposal methods, transparency, colormap shrinking, and multi-level optimization. The official page lists Debian, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Homebrew, MacPorts, DOS, and Windows package routes.

How it is used

Practitioners use gifsicle to merge still GIFs into animations, extract frames, replace or delete animation frames, interlace files, inspect comments and metadata, shrink colormaps, and optimize animations by storing only changed frame regions. In build scripts it often appears as the final asset-shrinking step for generated GIFs.

Why package nerds care

Gifsicle is one of the canonical small C command-line tools in the GIF ecosystem. It is portable, scriptable, and exact enough that downstream image pipelines and package tests can depend on its visual-equivalence behavior.

Timeline

1997: First public release.
1998: Optimization engine improved and gifdiff added.
2013: Color selection and dithering improvements added.
2017: SIMD and thread support for resizing added.
2019: Lossy optimization option added.
2025: Version 1.96 released with Oklab and Atkinson dithering support.

Related projects

The official page compares Gifsicle with Whirlgif, GIFMerge, Giftool, and web-based optimizers. It complements GIFLIB by focusing on end-user animation editing and optimization rather than a reusable C GIF library.

Sources

security posture

Risk level: blue

broad file, network, media, or database tool signal.

Risk classifier

blue risk · medium confidence · tool

Why

broad file, network, media, or database tool signal

Signals

text:image

Install behavior

No Homebrew post-install hook is recorded in formula metadata.
Homebrew bottle metadata is available for 8 platform targets.

Recommended review

Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.

executables

Installed executables

Command	Kind	Exposure	Note
`gifdiff`	cli	global executable
`gifsicle`	cli	global executable

freshness

Version and freshness

These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.

page generated2026-08-04

manager version1.96

manager updated

local dataok

upstreamnot checked

latest detectednot detected

https://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/

infoNo package-manager update timestamp was available.low confidence
infoRelease/tag comparison is only available for GitHub repositories.https://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/none confidence

install metadata

Package metadata

Package key	brew:gifsicle
Version	1.96
Package manager	Homebrew
Package manager page	https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/gifsicle
Homepage	https://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/
Repository	https://github.com/kohler/gifsicle
Upstream docs	https://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/
License	GPL-2.0-only
Source archive	https://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/gifsicle-1.96.tar.gz
Bottle	available (on arm64_linux, arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, arm64_tahoe, arm64_ventura, sonoma, ventura, x86_64_linux)
Homebrew post-install	not defined
Service	none declared

registry facts

Source database details

Source Database	Homebrew formula API
Tap	homebrew/core
Full Name	gifsicle
Version Scheme	0
Revision	0
Head Version	HEAD
Bottle Stable Root URL	https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core
Deprecated	no
Disabled	no
Keg Only	no
URL Keys	head stable

source database matches

Other package-manager records

Matches are pulled from external package-manager indexes and kept separate from local Automic Vault package links.

Debian apt95%

gifsicle 1.96-1

Tool for manipulating GIF images

http://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/

sudo apt install gifsicle

Section: graphics
Architecture: amd64
2 dependencies
normalized package name match
Matched by: Gifsicle

Debian stable package indexes · deb.debian.org · Debian stable package indexes: gifsicle from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz

Nix95%

gifsicle

nix profile install nixpkgs#gifsicle

normalized package name match
Matched by: Gifsicle

nixpkgs package indexes · api.github.com · nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/gi/gifsicle/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1

Ubuntu apt95%

gifsicle 1.94-1

Tool for manipulating GIF images

http://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/

sudo apt install gifsicle

Section: universe/graphics
Architecture: amd64
2 dependencies
normalized package name match
Matched by: Gifsicle

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes · archive.ubuntu.com · Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: gifsicle from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/universe/binary-amd64/Packages.gz

apk95%

gifsicle 1.96-r1

Command-line tool for making, editing and getting information about GIF animations

https://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/

sudo apk add gifsicle

License: GPL-2.0-only
Architecture: x86_64
Source Package: gifsicle
1 dependencies
1 provides
normalized package name match
Matched by: Gifsicle

Alpine Linux edge package indexes · dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org · Alpine Linux edge package indexes: gifsicle from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz

apk95%

gifsicle-doc 1.96-r1

Command-line tool for making, editing and getting information about GIF animations (documentation)

https://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/

sudo apk add gifsicle-doc

License: GPL-2.0-only
Architecture: x86_64
Source Package: gifsicle
normalized package name match
Matched by: Gifsicle

Alpine Linux edge package indexes · dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org · Alpine Linux edge package indexes: gifsicle-doc from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz

dnf95%

gifsicle 1.96-5.fc45

Powerful program for manipulating GIF images and animations

http://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/

sudo dnf install gifsicle

License: GPL-2.0-or-later
Category: Unspecified
Architecture: x86_64
Source Package: gifsicle
3 dependencies
1 provides
normalized package name match
Matched by: Gifsicle

Fedora Rawhide package metadata · dl.fedoraproject.org · Fedora Rawhide package metadata: gifsicle from https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/rawhide/Everything/x86_64/os/repodata/210a2053c8e007daf9ae39c2a21daaed9b2ddd07d63ecffa597050361e73650c-primary.xml.zst

dnf95%

gifview 1.96-5.fc45

Lightweight animated-GIF viewer

http://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/

sudo dnf install gifview

License: GPL-2.0-or-later
Category: Unspecified
Architecture: x86_64
Source Package: gifsicle
3 dependencies
1 provides
normalized package name match
Matched by: Gifsicle

Fedora Rawhide package metadata · dl.fedoraproject.org · Fedora Rawhide package metadata: gifview from https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/rawhide/Everything/x86_64/os/repodata/210a2053c8e007daf9ae39c2a21daaed9b2ddd07d63ecffa597050361e73650c-primary.xml.zst

pacman95%

gifsicle 1.96-1

Command-line tool for creating, editing, and getting information about GIF images and animations

https://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/

sudo pacman -S gifsicle

License: GPL-2.0-only
Architecture: x86_64
2 dependencies
normalized package name match
Matched by: Gifsicle

Arch Linux sync databases · geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com · Arch Linux sync databases: gifsicle from https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/extra/os/x86_64/extra.db.tar.gz

zypper95%

gifsicle 1.96-1.6

Creating and editing GIF images and animations

https://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/

sudo zypper install gifsicle

License: GPL-2.0-only
Category: Productivity/Graphics/Other
Architecture: x86_64
Source Package: gifsicle
3 dependencies
2 provides
normalized package name match
Matched by: Gifsicle

openSUSE Tumbleweed package metadata · download.opensuse.org · openSUSE Tumbleweed package metadata: gifsicle from https://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/repodata/50b07339cb64c8ed4091bdbabddadc1ff5737b090e478818a195b40d8a3292861a879139b4a3987c31109699fde9fbf4a716367ddf4eef77da75f96e3193d6ed-primary.xml.zst

MacPorts95%

gifsicle

sudo port install gifsicle

normalized package name match
Matched by: Gifsicle

MacPorts ports tree · api.github.com · MacPorts ports tree: graphics/gifsicle/Portfile from https://api.github.com/repos/macports/macports-ports/git/trees/master?recursive=1

Scoop95%

main/gifsicle

scoop install main/gifsicle

normalized package name match
Matched by: Gifsicle

Scoop official bucket manifest trees · api.github.com · Scoop official bucket manifest trees: bucket/gifsicle.json from https://api.github.com/repos/ScoopInstaller/Main/git/trees/master?recursive=1

package graph

Links come from deterministic package relationships, av.db category and tag curation, ecosystem matches, and package hub membership.

source trail

Generated from repository data

This page is generated by av-web from the private package SQLite artifact built by scripts/generate-pkg-sqlite.py.

Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub.

combined/gifsicle.yml

Used sources

Geiger risk classifier
cross-ecosystem install command graph
curated package history
external package-manager database matches
package relationship graph
package version freshness
package-page enrichment
pkg.so package database
pkgdb category and tag curation

Install gifsicle with Homebrew, apk, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, pacman, zypper, scoop

Additional install commands

macOS

Linux

Windows

Package summary

Project links

Commands and aliases

Project history and usage

Project history

Adoption history

How it is used

Why package nerds care

Timeline

Related projects

Sources

Risk level: blue

Risk classifier

Why

Signals

Install behavior

Recommended review

Installed executables

Version and freshness

Package metadata

Source database details

Other package-manager records

Internal package links

Topical hubs

Related tools

Same workflow

Agent security guides

Generated from repository data

Combined YAML source

Used sources