GIF files were introduced back in 1987 and they have played a small yet prominent part in the Internet subculture ever since. You’ve certainly come across such an image at least once during your web-browsing endeavors, and if you’re sailing the virtual waters on a daily basis, you’re probably stumbling upon loads of GIFs, MP4, and WebM (one of the standards that are supported with HTML5) images.

Okay, so far so good, but how do GIFs and MP4s mix with Android, in particular? Turns out the flexibility and openness of Android once again prove their worth – thanks to a couple of apps, you can set almost any GIF or an MP4 file as a wallpaper for your homescreen. What’s not to like, there are billions of GIFs on the web, and a portion of them are suitable for the portrait homescreen layouts of our mobile devices. 

“But why not use one of the many live wallpaper apps on the Play Store,” some may ask. Of course, you have a point, but imagine that come across a super terrific GIF that is not available as a separate app for Android, thus requiring you to manually set it as a dynamic background.

True, the apps that allow you to do so normally take their toll in the from of increased battery usage and possibly lower performance on the homescreen, but regardless, they are a cool way to customize yet another aspect of your Android experience. Okay, without any more ado, let’s get down to business!

Solution #1: How to set a video (WebM, MP4) as a live wallpaper

But what’s a “cinemagraph”, precious? Simple – high-quality looping videos that feature as little moving elements as possible and usually make great wallpapers. The very first GIF at the top of this post is actually a cinemagraph, but these come in all shapes and sizes.

                                                                                                                             

This file format is morally outdated at this point, being surpassed by MP4, WebM, and other video file formats like GIFV. 

All of these are higher-quality files that allow for significantly better bitrate at the fraction of the size of a similar GIF. 

Generally, we’d suggest referring to the first part of this article and following our pieces of advice on how to employ a MP4 video as your wallpaper.

However, if you absolutely want to use a GIF as a live wallpaper, you have a few options ahead of yourself. 

We recommend using GIF Live Wallpaper, since it’s simple and does exactly what it’s supposed to without straying off-topic.

Download GIF Live Wallpaper here

First, make sure you have a compatible GIF at your fingertips. After that requirement has been met, simply fire up the app, choose your GIF from the storage picker, and… that’s about it if you don’t want to invest any more time! However, the app has a powerful selection of tools that allow you to resize your GIFs, reposition them on your homescreen, change the playback speed, rotate them, and so on. After you’re happy with your adjustments, you will be brought straight to the default Android live wallpaper picker, where you will have to set your creation as a looping live wallpaper.