Why does Scratch ruin my GIFs?

iboingi12345

Lalalala, time to import a gif! Let's add a forever loop and see the result! … what happened is this a glitch

donotforgetmycode

Can you please link to the project where this is happening, and possibly also give more detail?

WhoLetHimOut

Scratch wasn't designed for gifs, as many have over 200 frames. If you want to use a gif, you can just import it, get a forever loop, next costume and a wait () seconds block to reduce lag.

I wouldn't recommend gifs, but whatever you use them for, make sure ou have a wait () seconds block. Either that or the gif has too many frames, and your computer can't run it, and in the that situation, that's not something scratch can fix easily.

iboingi12345

donotforgetmycode wrote:
Can you please link to the project where this is happening, and possibly also give more detail?

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/879209574/

Flowermanvista

This is a known issue with GIF importing. In my experience, you can work around this by importing the GIF as a new sprite, rather than importing it into an existing sprite. More info can be found here.

Alternatively, you can use this:

CatsUnited wrote:
I've experienced this and I used an alternative way to fix the ordering - to use scripts to fix the ordering
When you import a gif (e.g funny-gif), all the frames come out as funny-gif, then funny-gif2, then funny-gif3 etc. Even if they are out of order, you can play the sequence in order by requesting the exact costume name rather than using â€œnext costumeâ€, like this:
switch costume to [funny-gif v]
set [frame v] to [1]
repeat (length of gif:: #969696) 
wait (0) secs
change [frame v] by (1)
switch costume to (join [funny-gif] (frame)) 
end
Now the gif should be playing with every frame in the correct part of the sequence.

Royalrubble15

Flowermanvista wrote:
This is a known issue with GIF importing. In my experience, you can work around this by importing the GIF as a new sprite, rather than importing it into an existing sprite./quote]

For me, everytime i try to make it a sprits, the “importing” thing disappears and no sprite is there.

scratchy_boy106

Royalrubble15 wrote:
Flowermanvista wrote:
This is a known issue with GIF importing. In my experience, you can work around this by importing the GIF as a new sprite, rather than importing it into an existing sprite./quote]

For me, everytime i try to make it a sprits, the “importing” thing disappears and no sprite is there.

Please
Don't
Necropost

Oops wiki link is corrupted

Last edited by scratchy_boy106 (Aug. 10, 2026 11:24:03)

purplebunny63

scratchy_boy106 wrote:
Royalrubble15 wrote:
Flowermanvista wrote:
This is a known issue with GIF importing. In my experience, you can work around this by importing the GIF as a new sprite, rather than importing it into an existing sprite./quote]

For me, everytime i try to make it a sprits, the “importing” thing disappears and no sprite is there.
Please
Don't
necropost

Oops wiki link is corrupted

Fixed

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