Combine multiple GIFs in Photoshop

Combining or merging two or more GIF files into one is easy. Each GIF file consists of a series of frames. You can use a GIF editor to decompile it and split it into individual image frames, then merge or join them together into one GIF file. Today, we will use Photoshop as the GIF editor and combiner to join two GIFs into one on a Windows PC.

Step 1. Import GIF files into Photoshop

Launch the image editor program on your PC. Go to File > Open to locate all the GIF files you want to merge and open them in Photoshop. You can also drag them from Windows File Explorer and drop them to the program to quickly open them.

Step 2. Enable Timeline to manage GIF frames

Timeline is inactive by default. Click Window > Timeline to activate it, you can then see the Timeline panel at the bottom of your workspace.

You will see Photoshop splits all GIF frames and displays the thumbnails in the Timeline.

Step 3. Copy and paste GIF frames

Now we have split GIF into individual frames. It’s time to copy them from one GIF to another. We can achieve this from the Timeline panel. Click the Menu at the upper right corner of the Timeline, choose Select All Frames. You can also use Ctrl+click or Shift+click in the Timeline to select multiple frames instead of all frames when you only need to copy a fragment of a GIF file and insert them into the other GIF file.

After we have selected all the image frames in the Timeline, click the same Menu button again, and choose Copy Frames this time.

Before we heading to insert or paste those frames into the other GIF file, we firstly need to open the new GIF file tab in Photoshop, then select the image frame where we like to insert those copied frames to. Generally speaking, you may want to choose the last frame of the first GIF file in the Timeline. Then click the Menu button and choose Paste Frames…. from the pop-up menu. Before the copied frames being inserted into the other GIF file, you have to choose a Paste Method in the Paste Frames pop-up dialog: Replace Frames, Paste Over Selection, Paste Before Selection, Paste After Selection. Here we choose Paste After Selection so all frames from the two GIFs will play one after the other in the new merged GIF file.

Step 4. Preview and Export GIF

Hit the Play button at the bottom of the Timeline to play the combined animation frames to ensure they are arranged properly and adjust the sequence if necessary from there.

Finally go to export your GIF by clicking File> Export > Save for Web (Legacy), choose GIF as the File Type and tweak other settings if like, hit Save…. button, choose a location and file name and export the merged GIF files as a new one.