How To Put a GIF in an Email in Gmail

Evan Gower July 6, 2019

Social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and others, have overthrown emails from their position of the main tool for online communication. Of course, emails are not completely out of the picture yet, as they are quite useful in many different situations.

Although email services, such as Gmail, aren’t packed with the same features that make chatting so interesting (like social media platforms are), they allow users to customize their emails and have fun; at least to an extent.

With that being said, let’s see how you can use one of the most popular “funny” media in Gmail today. Of course, we are talking animated pictures called GIFs.

Adding GIFs to Your Gmails

GIFs are an excellent way of sharing jokes and communicating without having to write a single sentence. They are incredibly popular across social media platforms that almost all of them have included special features that allow users to easily browse and send them.

Gmail doesn’t have such a feature but you can add GIFs manually. There are two easy methods that you can use for this. Let’s go through them both.

Method 1

The first method is pretty much the easiest one you can use. Here’s what you have to do:

Find a GIF that you want to send via Gmail. You can search for GIFs on many different websites, such as GIPHY. GIPHY and other similar websites feature all sorts of GIFs and allow you to share, download, or even create them, for free.
Once you have found an appropriate GIF, download it and save it somewhere on your computer so that you know exactly where it is. To download a GIF simply right-click on the GIF that you want and select Save Image As. We have saved our GIF on the Desktop as it will be easier to use it from there.
Open Your Gmail.
Click on Compose and enter the email that you want to send the GIF to.
Minimize your browser’s window so that you can see both the email’s body (the field where you enter the text) and the icon of the GIF that you’ve just downloaded.
Drag the GIF and drop it in the email’s body and the GIF will appear just like you saw it on the website.
Click Send.

In case the GIF doesn’t fully show like in the picture above, check if you have downloaded it correctly and try inserting it again.

Method 2

The second method has a bit more to it, but it is still quite easy to do. Here’s the alternative method for adding GIFs to Gmail:

Find a GIF that you want to send.
Download the GIF by right-clicking on it and selecting Save Image As.
Open your Gmail.
Click on Compose.
Enter the email that you want to send the GIF to.
Select the Paperclip icon that represents the Gmail’s Attach feature.
Find the GIF that you have just downloaded and double-click on it. That will attach the GIF to your email.
Click send.

What you need to know about this method is that your GIF won’t open like in the previous case. Also, the receiver will have to click on the attached file in order to see the GIF. On the other hand, the GIF will be visible to receivers as soon as they open their email if you are using the first method.

Have Fun Sending Emails

And that was it! Plain and simple, wouldn’t you say? Now that you know how to insert GIFs to your emails in Gmail, have fun and use them in the best way possible.

Do you have an alternative method that you would want to share? Do you maybe have a favorite GIF? Feel free to tell us all about it in the comment section below.