How to Show Animated GIF in Java

We can use the Swing library methods of the javax package to show the animated GIFs in Java. This article introduces how users can show animated GIFs in Java applications or separate windows.

Use the Javax.swing Library to Show Animated GIFs in Java

In the below example code, we have imported the required libraries. We use the jLabel and jFrame classes of the javax.swing library.

Also, we are using the URL class from the Java.net library. To read the GIF from the URL, we created the object of the URL class and passed the location URL of the GIF as an argument.

From that URL, we have created the image icon using the object of the ImageIcon class.

Next, we created the jLabel from the Imageicon. Now, we will create a frame to display the jLabel.

After that, we added the label to the frame to show the GIF. At last, we have set the visible to true using the frame.setVisible(true).

Example Code:

// import required libraries
import java.net.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class TestClass {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    try {
      // create a new URL from the image URL
      URL ImageUrl =
          new URL("https://www.delftstack.com/img/HTML/page%20redirects%20to%20index.gif");
      // Create image icon from URL
      Icon imageIcon = new ImageIcon(ImageUrl);
      // Create a new JLabel from the icon
      JLabel label = new JLabel(imageIcon);
      // Create a new JFrame to append the icon
      JFrame frame = new JFrame("Animation");
      // add a label to JFrame
      frame.getContentPane().add(label);
      frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
      frame.pack();
      frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
      // Show the JFrame
      frame.setVisible(true);
    } catch (Exception e) {
      System.out.println(e);
    }
  }
}

Output:

In the above output, users can see a new window pop-up showing the animated GIF.

Also, if users want to show the GIF from the local computer, they can give the path of the GIF while initializing the object of ImageIcon as shown in the code below.

Icon imageIcon = new ImageIcon("<path of GIF from local computer");

We don’t need to create the URL class object if we show the GIF from the local computer.

Furthermore, users can customize the size of the window frame of a GIF and set custom labels for the frame according to their needs.