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Usually I open the context menu right clicking on the image. Now theres no option for "save image as", just options for the WEBM/MP4 format.

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29

GIFV isn't a GIF at all, in the traditional sense anyway. It's actually a video file.

Here's what I read from Imgur's blog post introducing GIFV:

The cornerstone of Project GIFV is a platform-wide upgrade to automatically convert uploaded GIF files on the fly into the WebM or MP4 video formats, depending on browser support.
...
Project GIFV implements video in a way that looks and behaves exactly like a GIF.

If you right-clicked on a GIFV and selected Open link in new tab (or a similar option) you'd see that Imgur creates a minimalistic web page that it seems like you just opened a GIF in a new tab but right-click anywhere on the page and select View Source and you'll see that isn't the case.

To answer your question, the easiest way to save a GIFV as a GIF (if it is hosted on Imgur.com) is to open it in a new tab and click on the download link at the bottom. download GIFV

If the GIFV is hosted on another site (not that I know of any other sites hosting GIFV) you can use either of the two online video conversion services:

  1. MP4 to GIF
  2. WEBM to GIF

NOTE: Downloading a GIFV as a proper GIF will most certainly increase the file size by a big margin. If you'd rather download the WEBM or MP4 video instead, you may right click on the GIFV and select Save video as... (or a similar option).

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  • The download button just downloaded a gifv for me. :(
    – ruffin
    Jan 9, 2019 at 14:50
  • @ruffin it seems to still work for me. Could you share the imgur link to the GIF you're trying to download?
    – Vinayak
    Jan 11, 2019 at 15:43
  • This example does not behave like you describe: imgur.com/Bwgxvhe ... I have used it b4 and I know works sometmes, ijdk what the cause of the difference is.
    – Rondo
    Jun 14, 2019 at 21:11
  • @Rondo The other way is to just add a .gifv at the end of the URL. That works for this.
    – Vinayak
    Jun 16, 2019 at 12:39
  • No, it doesn't... If you add the gifv extension to the url I posted you get a download link that only downloads as mp4
    – Rondo
    Jun 16, 2019 at 23:51
16

For Imgur URLs, if you remove the V from .gifv then you will get the original animated GIF.

(This might not be "a simple GIF" but could be a large file, as explained on Imgur's blog. Like in http://i.imgur.com/zvATqgs.gifv the embedded video is 3.4 MB, but the original animated GIF http://i.imgur.com/zvATqgs.gif is 46.7 MB.)

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5
  • 2
    That's not true. A .gifv file is a video file, not a .gif image.
    – slhck
    May 14, 2015 at 18:19
  • 7
    @slhck Actually, if he meant changing .gifv to .gif in the imgur.com URL pointing to the GIF, Imgur would deliver the uncompressed GIF instead of the video file.
    – Vinayak
    May 15, 2015 at 8:46
  • Ah, you're right @Vinayak, that must have been what they meant.
    – Arjan
    May 17, 2015 at 10:19
  • @Vinayak That gave me a single-frame gif.
    – ruffin
    Jan 9, 2019 at 14:51
  • @ruffin do you have the link to it?
    – Vinayak
    Jan 11, 2019 at 15:42
1

Renaming .gifv to .gif extension on the address bar does not work for me.

Right click on the .gifv and copy video url, this will copy it's url with .mp4 extension.

Use wget or other tools to download the file. It usually redirects back to the .gifv link on a browser.

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1
  • This won't work if revisiting the url will generate a new file.
    – Александр
    Oct 25, 2022 at 20:40

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