Creating an animated gif with PIL that does not loop

Question

I've been able to create animated gifs that loop infinitely using PIL without an issue, usually ending up with something like

final_image.save('/path/to/images/some.gif, save_all=True, append_images=frames_images, duration=frame_speeds, loop=0)

I am now in a situation where I would like to create a gif that plays a single time and does not loop. The PIL docs I used¹ are pretty clear about the loop argument but don't offer any advice for my situation:

loop : int
The number of iterations. Default 0 (meaning loop indefinitely).

0 causes it to loop infinitely. 1 causes it loop once (play two times). I have tried options like -1 and None but can't find a working argument. I am currently using a work around where I invoke gifsicle afterwards to remove the loop entirely but was hoping PIL would support this natively

¹ - https://imageio.readthedocs.io/en/stable/format_gif-pil.html

Surely loop=1 means it loops (and thus plays) once, not twice as you suggest? — Gavin, Feb 11 '19 at 00:44
@Gavin Unfortunately no, loop=1 seems to result in the sequence playing two times — user1026361, Feb 11 '19 at 00:57
Might depend on the version of imageio / pillow - see the following merge request as it seems to be an incompatibility between older versions of imageio and _some_ gif players (ie chrome for instance). [imageio merge request](https://github.com/imageio/imageio/pull/237) — Gavin, Feb 11 '19 at 01:05
@user1026361 it appears you have stumbled upon a bug in the current distribution of the Pillow for Python. I was able to replicate your issue, in fact the GIF will always loop `n+1` times when passed `loop=n` - I can only suggest submitting this as a bug with the maintainer and using your workaround to enforce a single loop for the time being. Note that @Gavin is correct, the issue is relevant - Chrome loops twice for `n=1`, while some viewers only loop once (and others loop the same .gif endlessly) — Grismar, Feb 11 '19 at 01:11
Thank you @Grismar and Gavin - I've never encountered an issue with PIL and hadn't considered this might be a bug. I will keep my work around in play and follow up with the maintainer — user1026361, Feb 11 '19 at 04:19

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 25 '19 at 14:38

8

If you are using Pillow, you can leave out the loop argument. That'll ensure no loop. https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/stable/handbook/image-file-formats.html#saving Also to note, duration is in milliseconds, not seconds.

answered Oct 25 '19 at 14:38

cbasavaraj

105
1
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I don't know why that's not the accepted answer. It works for me. Thank you! – cdrom Feb 10 '20 at 15:46

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 20 '21 at 13:42

What a funny coincidence. I have a code that shows a GIF one iteration and then freezes until the mp3 file is finished... but I need a GIF that loops infinitely.

The only difference is I used the library moviepy.

Working solution:

from moviepy.editor import *
import moviepy.editor as mp


# Import the audio(Insert to location of your audio instead of audioClip.mp3)
audio = AudioFileClip("PATH/TO/MP3_FILE")

clip = VideoFileClip("PATH/TO/GIF_FILE").set_duration(audio.duration)


# Set the audio of the clip
clip = clip.set_audio(audio)


clip_resized = clip.resize((1920, 1080)) 


# Export the clip
clip_resized.write_videofile("movie_resized.mp4", fps=24)

Creating an animated gif with PIL that does not loop

2 Answers2