Delete frames from GIF using Preview on Mac

Occasionally we may want to delete certain frames or images from an animated GIF file. For instance, if a GIF file is too large to be shared, an effective way to shrink the file size is to delete some frames or images from the GIF file. Mac has the built-in tool, the Preview, to help us with that, similarly to this guide to delete pages from PDF. You can follow these quick steps to delete frames from GIF using Preview on Mac.

Open the GIF file in Preview on your Mac. You should see the image thumbnails on the left column. If not, click View from the top menu bar and choose Thumbnails from the drop-down list so as to show the sidebar and image thumbnails.

Click a thumbnail from the left sidebar in Preview to select the image or frame; press shift key and click to select multiple consecutive frames or use command+click to choose multiple images or frames individually.

Delete frames from GIF using Preview on Mac

Press the delete key to delete all selected frames from the GIF, or click the Edit menu, then choose Delete from the drop-down list to remove all selected frames or images from the GIF file in Preview on Mac.

Export frames from GIF

Other than remove frames or images from GIF, you can also use Preview to export certain frames and save them as images on your Mac. Simply select the frame(s) you like to save or export, then drag them from the sidebar or thumbnails panel to your desktop. Or right click on the selected frames or thumbnails, then choose Export As, choose output format, quality and location, finally hit the Save button to export them.

Add new frames or images to GIF

Another useful function is to add extra images or frames to an existing GIF. You can drag and drop new images from your Mac to the thumbnails panel or the sidebar in Preview to insert additional frames.