Can I make Outlook play a GIF for someone else?

No. Whether it plays depends on the reader's version of Outlook and their Windows settings, and nothing inside an email can change either. What you control is what the first frame shows.

Do animated GIFs play in Outlook on a phone?

Yes. Outlook for iPhone and Android plays animated GIFs, as do Outlook on the web and Outlook for Mac. The first-frame behaviour belongs to the desktop app on Windows.

Can I use a video in my email signature instead?

Not one that most people will see play. A few clients, such as Apple Mail, can play video in an email, but Gmail and Outlook do not, which is why animated signatures are made from GIFs.

Do Animated GIFs Work in Outlook? Versions and Fixes

Do animated GIFs work in Outlook?

Mostly, yes. Current Outlook plays them; older versions, and any Windows machine with animation effects switched off, show only the first frame. Here is who sees what, and how to make a signature that looks finished either way.

Zeeshan MistryFounder of Animated SignaturePublished 23 September 20266 minute read

Which versions of Outlook play animated GIFs

"Outlook freezes GIFs" is the answer most people have heard, and it was true for a long time. It is now true only for some readers. What a recipient sees depends on which Outlook they use and, on Windows, one setting.

Outlook	What it does with an animated GIF
Microsoft 365, 2024 and 2021 on Windows	Plays it by default. Shows only the first frame if animation effects are switched off in Windows.
2019 on Windows	Plays it once, then shows a play button over it.
2007 to 2016 on Windows	Shows only the first frame.
On the web, for Mac, and on iPhone and Android	Plays it, looping, like Gmail and Apple Mail do.

Why some Outlook setups show only one frame

From Outlook 2007 onwards, the desktop app for Windows has laid out HTML email with Microsoft Word rather than with a browser engine, and Word treats an animated GIF as a picture: it draws the first frame and stops there.

Current versions do play animation, but they hand the decision to Windows. On Windows 10 the switch is Show animations in Windows; on Windows 11 it is Animation effects, under Settings, then Accessibility, then Visual effects. Some people switch it off for comfort, and some organisations switch it off for everyone. When it is off, Outlook shows the first frame.

Frame 0 is the fix

Most animated GIFs start from nothing and build up: a photo fades in, a logo slides into place. The first frame of a GIF like that is blank, or close to it, and a blank frame is exactly what a frozen client shows. The reader sees an empty box where your face should be.

The fix is to order the animation so that its first frame is the finished picture. The motion then plays as a loop that starts and ends at rest, and any client that stops on frame 0 stops on the right one.

Twelve frames of an animated signature photo. The first frame shows the finished photo in three pill shapes; the next frames start empty and assemble the pills again. — Twelve frames of Design 4's motion, as the renderer builds it. Frame 0, on the left, is the finished photo. Frames 1 to 11 assemble it from nothing, and the loop comes back to rest. A fictional person.

What each reader sees

The same signature, twice. On the left, what Gmail, Apple Mail and current Outlook show: the photo assembling itself and coming to rest. On the right, what Outlook shows with animation switched off: frame 0, the finished picture.

Animation on: it plays, then rests.

Animation off: frame 0.

How to check your own GIF

Open the GIF in a browser and watch the very first moment, or pull out the first frame and look at it on its own. With ffmpeg installed, this writes frame 0 to a file:

ffmpeg -i signature.gif -vf "select=eq(n\,0)" -frames:v 1 frame0.png

Open frame0.png. If it is blank, faded or half drawn, that is what some Outlook users see. If it is the finished picture, your GIF is safe everywhere.

How Animated Signature does it

Every animation Animated Signature renders is built with the finished picture as frame 0. It is a rule of the renderer rather than a fix applied afterwards, and a test in the product checks that no later frame shows anything the first frame hides. Your own photo is animated in your browser under the same rule.

The builder's preview has an Outlook view that swaps every animation for its first frame, so you can see what those readers will get before you send anything. The text, links and banner around the photo are real text, so they read the same in every client either way.