How To Search For And Add GIFs In The Twitter Mobile App
Twitter has long supported the ability to play GIFs. You can tweet a GIF image and it will play in the timeline on both the desktop and the mobile apps. Likewise, you can link to a GIF and it will play. Unlike Facebook, Twitter has been very accommodating of this particular image format and it’s been likewise used on it excessively. As of a recent update to Twitter, you can now search for and tweet GIFs from inside the mobile apps. Here’s how.
Click the ‘Compose new tweet’ button there will be a new GIF button between the picture/video and poll button. Tap it to search for a GIF or to browse one of the existing quick categories.
Tap the GIF you want to tweet to insert and tap ‘Tweet’. The GIFs come from some of the most popular online GIF repositories. The one in the example below comes from Riffsy and though it says ‘Via GIF Keyboard’ you don’t need to have the app of the same name installed on your device in order to search for and add a GIF to your tweet.
With the GIF added, you cannot add other images or a poll to the Tweet. You can add text and your current location. If you’re looking to tweet multiple GIFs, you can’t do that either. The only way to Tweet multiple GIFs is to upload them from your device’s storage via the ‘Photo’ button. That said, Twitter is at least improving support for GIFs while Facebook continues to evade them. Considering the many ways in which Twitter is trying to become more and more like Facebook, the GIF button is a welcome change.
Twitter for Android version 5.97.0 and Twitter for iPhone version 6.47.1 have the new GIF option. If your app is up to date, you might have to wait awhile before the new version is pushed to your local app store.
