Twitter Launches GIF Search Feature On iOS, Android And The Web

Here come the GIFs. We noticed Twitter testing an in-app GIF button on Android a few weeks ago, and now the company has formally announced that it is turning the feature on for all users.

The test seemed to go pretty well based on the number of GIF tweets from users in the trial so a full launch is no surprise at all. Twitter said that ‘GIF Search’ — which it is calling the button — will become available to iOS, Android and Twitter.com users “over the coming weeks.” The button will work for composing public tweets and sending DMs, too, the company added.

The search feature is powered by Giphy and Riffsy, two of the biggest repositories of GIFs on the Internet — and the same two companies that are behind the GIF search feature in Facebook Messenger. Like Messenger, you can choose GIFs on Twitter using a range of pre-selected categories — like “awesome”, “agree”, “dance” — or by searching for specific terms.

Twitter said that its users shared over 100 million GIFs last year. That figure was no doubt helped by the fact that GIFs (and videos) autoplay inside users’ timelines, but making it super simple to find them is sure to supercharge that trend — good job there’s a mute button for anyone who takes this new feature too far.