GIF Caption Maker

How to make a GIF caption

1. Drop a GIF on the box above, or tap it to choose one from your phone or computer.
2. Type your caption. The preview updates as you type, with the same font and line breaks as the final GIF.
3. Pick Top or Bottom and a text size, then tap Make caption GIF.
4. Download it, or tap a Fit button to squeeze it under Discord's upload or emoji limit first.

The white box caption, explained

A GIF caption in this style is a white strip with black text, stacked on top of the animation. It started on iFunny, where the app's caption tool made the look famous, and spread to Discord servers, Reddit threads and group chats as the standard way to react with a GIF. People also call it a white box caption or a "when the" caption, after the most common way these captions start. Unlike classic meme text, the words sit on their own bar and never cover the picture, so even busy clips stay readable.

Font, wrapping and size

The caption is set in Barlow Condensed ExtraBold: tall, heavy and narrow, so a full sentence fits across a small GIF and still reads at thumbnail size. Long captions wrap onto several lines automatically, and the bar grows to fit them, with even padding above and below. Text size is a share of the GIF's width, so Medium looks the same on a 200-pixel reaction GIF and on a 600-pixel clip. Use Small for long captions and Large for two or three words.

Getting it under Discord's limits

Adding a bar makes every frame taller, so the file grows a little. GIFCompact rebuilds and optimizes the GIF after adding the caption, which usually keeps the growth small. If you are posting to Discord, the two Fit buttons under the result do the rest:Fit Discord upload brings the GIF under the 20 MB limit for free accounts, and Fit Discord emojishrinks it into a 128-pixel box and under 256 KB so you can add it as an animated server emoji. Both start with the gentlest setting and only get stronger when they have to. More about the limits on the Discord page.

Caption formats that work

Most white box captions follow a handful of formats. Each one works because it tells the reader how to read the GIF before it plays:

• "when the …" sets up a situation the GIF reacts to: "when the group chat goes quiet after you send a joke".
• "me when …" casts you as the person in the GIF: "me when the wifi comes back".
• "POV: …" puts the viewer inside the scene: "POV: you said one more episode three episodes ago".
• "nobody: / me: …" on two lines, for doing something no one asked for. Press Enter in the caption box for the line break.
• A plain label naming what the GIF is: "the project manager seeing the deadline". Short, dry, and easy to read in a busy chat.

Whatever the format, the GIF carries the punchline. The caption only has to set it up, which is why one line usually beats three.

Tips for captions that land

• Keep it short. One line reads at a glance in a busy chat; three lines start to bury the GIF.
• Lowercase and no full stop is the usual caption voice. Capitals read as shouting.
• Pick a GIF where the reaction is in the first second. People decide before the loop comes back around.
• Caption first, compress second. Every edit rebuilds the GIF, so compressing at the end gives the smallest file.

A GIF caption maker that never uploads your GIF

The caption is drawn and the GIF is rebuilt inside your browser, using open-source code that runs on your own device. Your GIF is not uploaded, not stored and not seen by anyone. There is no watermark on the result and no account to create.