How To Download Videos from Gfycat

Want to download videos from Gfycat? Want to convert Gfycat WEBM video format into MP4? This tutorial will show you how.

Gfycat is a great site for GIFs and seems to be a website that keeps on giving even though GIFs are very limited in their scope. The appeal is a mix of its simplicity and the open nature of the app where anyone can make anything and post it online. One of the best things about the internet!

Whenever I think the world is doomed or that people are too tied up in politics, hate or stupidity, I visit somewhere like Giphy or Gfycat. It shows me in a second that there are smart, funny, humorous, intelligent people out there. It shows me that people see the world completely differently from me and that’s okay. It also shows me that people see things in the most mundane situations that I wouldn’t see until they show me. GIFs are the perfect way to brighten up a day.

Anyway, back to Gfycat.

Download GIFs from Gfycat

Apps are all very well and sites like Gfycat are great in that they host thousands of videos for our entertainment. However, the impermanent nature of them means any standout GIFs will be there one minute and gone the next. If some are of a sufficient quality to view again and again, why not download them so they don’t disappear

Most of the time this is against a website’s T&Cs. Gfycat allows you to freely share GIFs from the site by linking to them on the various platforms but doesn’t say anything that I could find about downloading.

The easiest way to download a video from Gfycat is to right click it.

1. Right click a video in Gfycat and select Save Video As.
2. Select WEBM as the format and give it a name.

Your only option is to use WEBM as the format as that’s how the videos are saved on the site. You can convert it to MP4 if you like while I’ll show you how to do in a minute.

You can also use this Chrome extension if you prefer. It is a little temperamental but I have been able to use it to download a GIF as an MP4 a few times now.

There are also a couple of websites that use the same principle as downloading YouTube videos but for Gfycat. I tested a couple, Tube Offline, OFFMP3 and 9XBuddy and they all seemed to work fine. You need to get the URL of the video, paste it into the box and hit Download. The page will grab the video, convert it to MP4 and save it onto your device.

Embedding Gfycat videos

If you just want to use a video on your own website or social media, you can link directly to it like you can a YouTube video. Arguably this is better as Gfycat is still hosting the video and using its storage and bandwidth rather than yours.

Share Gfycat on social media

For example, to share a Gfycat video on Facebook, select a video, select the paper plane underneath, select the F icon for Facebook and complete the text, comment or whatever you want to add and hit Post.

You can do the same for Titter, Reddit and others too.

Embed a Gfycat video on a web page

Embedding a Gfycat video is just as straightforward. Using WordPress as an example, you create your post in the editor as you normally would. Copy the GIF URL from Gfycat, switch from Text to Code view in WordPress, paste the URL where you want the GIF to appear and switch back to Text view.

You should see the GIF appear inline where you added the code. Once you publish the page, the GIF will remain in place and play.

You can also use iFrame to embed onto a web page. It uses the same principle as social media sharing. Select the paper airplane icon underneath the video and select Embed at the bottom of the video. Use the Responsive option, copy the code, use the same Code view on your web page, paste the code, switch back and you should see the video appear.

Convert WEBM to MP4

Gfycat uses the WEBM format for its videos and it is your only option when downloading them unless you use a tool or browser extension. You can convert it afterwards if you want to by using a couple of web converters. Online Uniconverter and Zamzar are both pretty decent options for that.

Download your video from Gfycat and upload them to an online converter. Let the page do its thing and download as an MP4. That’s it!