Pause/Disable Animated GIFs

Pause or prevent Animated GIFs from running.

Compatibility

Works with: Firefox 3.6+

Background

Animated GIFs will run indefinitely until stopped and will restart whenever the page is reloaded.

The Tweak

Use the image below for testing these two tweaks:

Pausing

Pressing ‘ESC’ key will pause animated GIFs on a page. Note: to ‘resume’ the animation reload the page.

Restricting

To prevent animated GIFs from running whenever the page is loaded make the following change via about:config:

1. In a new tab type about:config in the address bar and press enter
2. In the filter field type animation
3. In the results listed double-click on image.animation_mode
4. In the pop-up box type ‘none‘ (this will prevent image animation from playing)
5. Refresh the page

Original Article

Updated: November 15, 2025