How to Rotate or Flip an Animated GIF

To rotate a GIF, open GIF Rotate & Flip, add the GIF, and choose 90° clockwise, 90° counter-clockwise or 180° — or Flip horizontally or Flip vertically to mirror it. The preview shows the result immediately. Press Save GIF and download it.

Rotate or flip a GIF step by step

1. Open GIF Rotate & Flip.
2. Add the GIF — or paste a direct link to one.
3. Under Turn or flip, choose:
   • ↻ 90° clockwise
   • ↺ 90° counter-clockwise
   • 180°
   • ⟺ Flip horizontally (mirror left to right)
   • ⇅ Flip vertically (mirror top to bottom)
4. Check the preview and the new size.
5. Press Save GIF and download it.

Which option do I need?

• The GIF is lying on its side: if the top of the picture is on the left, choose 90° clockwise; if it's on the right, 90° counter-clockwise.
• It's upside down: choose 180° — not "flip vertically", which also swaps left and right.
• Writing reads backwards (a mirrored selfie recording): Flip horizontally.
• You want a character to face the other way: Flip horizontally.

A quarter turn swaps width and height — a 480×270 GIF becomes 270×480.

Sharp results, exactly

Rotating by quarter and half turns, and flipping, moves pixels to new positions without any resampling — nothing is blurred, and each frame keeps its delay and transparency. Only the colour palette is re-optimised when the GIF is saved.

Why GIFs end up sideways

GIFs made from phone videos sometimes come out sideways: the phone stored a rotation note in the video, but the program that made the GIF ignored it and used the raw sensor orientation. Screen recordings from a rotated tablet, and GIFs from old cameras, do the same. Rotating the GIF fixes it permanently — a GIF has no rotation note of its own, so every app shows it exactly as saved.

Mirroring for direction

Flipping horizontally is a quick trick for layouts: a character or arrow that points right can be made to point left, so it faces into your page, slide or email rather than off the edge. It's also how you fix mirrored text from a front-camera recording.

Pixel art and small GIFs

Because pixels are moved, not resampled, rotations and flips are perfect for pixel art — every pixel stays crisp. To enlarge pixel art afterwards, use the GIF Resizer with Sharp pixels ticked, which scales pixels as crisp squares.

Doing several changes

Need to rotate and flip? Save the first change, then load the result and apply the second. Rotate before cropping or adding text, so the text isn't sideways.

Spinning, not rotating

If you want an image to spin continuously in the animation, use the Spin & Shake GIF Maker, which turns a still picture into a looping spin, shake, pulse or bounce.

Videos

To rotate a video instead — for example a phone video that plays sideways — use Rotate Video, then make a GIF from it with Video to GIF if you need one.

After rotating

• Crop away edges with the GIF Cropper.
• Resize for where it's going with the GIF Resizer.
• Make it smaller with the GIF Compressor.

Privacy

The GIF is rotated in your browser — it's never uploaded, and there's no watermark.

Frequently asked questions

Can I rotate by 45° or another angle?

No — only quarter and half turns, which keep the GIF rectangular without blurring or empty corners.

Does rotating change the file size?

Very little. The same pixels are rearranged; the size may change slightly as the colours are re-optimised.

Will my transparent background stay transparent?

Yes — transparency is kept in every frame.