Who actually answers when a picker gets typed into
When someone types into a GIF search box, they are querying a licensed database, and the map of who queries what was redrawn weeks ago. Google shut down Tenor's public API on June 30, 2026, and the apps that leaned on it scattered: Discord's picker now runs on a newcomer called Klipy, WhatsApp moved to GIPHY, while Google's own Gboard keyboard and Messages still search Tenor, which Google has owned since 2018. Slack's /giphy command searches GIPHY, as it always has. For a creator the takeaway survives the reshuffle: GIPHY and Tenor remain the two libraries you can publish into, and a well-tagged GIF in them can surface in conversations for years. No feed, no followers, just someone typing the exact feeling you animated.
The gate: uploading is free, being found is earned
Here is the part most guides bury. Anyone with a free GIPHY account can upload; the GIF lives on your channel and its direct link works everywhere. But appearing in GIPHY's public search, the one Slack queries, is reserved for channels GIPHY's team has approved: an Artist or Brand channel, applied for with a body of original work. Until then, your uploads are share-by-link only. This is not a technicality, it is the whole game, so if search placement is the goal, budget for the application: a filled-out channel, several original pieces, and links that prove the work is yours.
Build the file to GIPHY's published taste
GIPHY's own creation guidance is specific, and this converter's dials map onto it directly:
- Size: 100MB is the hard cap, 8MB or less is the recommendation. The live size estimate here tells you where you stand before you export; the small-file playbook closes any gap.
- Length: 15 seconds maximum, 6 or less recommended. Reaction GIFs live at 2 to 4. Trim hard; the I and O keys drop cut points on exact frames.
- Resolution: 480p is the recommendation, 720p the ceiling. Set the width field around 480 and stop; a GIF in a chat bubble never shows more.
- Under 200 frames works best. Four seconds at 15 fps is 60 frames, comfortably inside. The frame counter on the result readout keeps you honest.
Tags are the entire discovery mechanism
GIPHY is blunt about this: untagged content does not appear in keyword search at all, and the cap is twenty tags per upload. Spend them like a searcher, not a curator. People type feelings and moments (excited, monday, deadline, no thanks), not descriptions of your composition. GIPHY's guidelines also prohibit inaccurate tags, and tag-spamming irrelevant terms is the fastest way to get content flagged. A good exercise: before uploading, type your intended tags into GIPHY's search and see what company your GIF would keep.
Tenor, the other half of the map
Tenor's upload works the same way at heart: a free account (it is a Google product, so a Google login), an upload page at tenor.com, and tags that drive search. Since the June 2026 API shutdown its reach is Google's own surfaces, which is still enormous: Gboard's keyboard search and Google Messages put Tenor results under billions of thumbs. Discord is no longer Tenor territory, and whether its new Klipy library opens a creator upload path is a question for a landscape that is weeks old. Practical plan: publish to GIPHY and Tenor, the two open doors; the file is identical and the tagging thought transfers. For chat-app specifics, the Slack and Discord guide maps the terrain.
Publish it, step by step
- Make the GIF to spec. Around 480px wide, 6 seconds or less, comfortably under 8MB on the live estimate.
- Create the free GIPHY account and fill out the channel: avatar, description, links to your work.
- Upload at giphy.com/upload and spend your twenty tags on feelings and moments people actually type.
- Want search placement? Apply for an Artist or Brand channel. Original work only; approval is what puts you in Slack's results.
- Repeat on Tenor for Gboard and Google Messages reach: same file, same tagging logic, Google login.
- Verify after indexing: search your own tags in the wild. If approved uploads are not surfacing, your tags are the first suspect.
Why this site will never have an Upload to GIPHY button
It would be easy to bolt on, and it would break our one promise. This converter's entire architecture is that it cannot send your media anywhere: the browser's Content Security Policy stops the page's scripts from making outbound uploads, and everything encodes locally. A built-in GIPHY upload would mean opening that door and asking you to trust that we only use it when you click. No. Instead, the result panel links you to giphy.com/upload, and the file travels from your device to your GIPHY account directly, under your login, with this site nowhere in the chain. Publishing is your move, made from your machine, exactly as it should be.