A few seconds of animation can still be too large to send. Start with what the GIF needs to show. A reaction can survive some roughness, but a demo of a small button or a changing number needs enough detail to follow. Try one change at a time so you can see what helped.
Find out what you're carrying
Open GIF Inspector to see the dimensions, frame count, duration, and delays. Those details help you choose the next tool. A long pause before the useful action calls for a cut. A huge frame around a tiny subject calls for a crop or resize. Smooth motion with more frames than the destination needs is a reason to try a lower frame rate.
GIF also uses color tables, each with up to 256 entries. Changing the palette can change the picture, especially in shaded areas. The GIF89a specification documents the format's color tables and frame controls. You don't need to read it to use the tools, but it explains why a color setting is part of this job.
Cut the part nobody needs
Use GIF Cutter and Splitter when the animation has a lead-in or ending you don't need. Choose Keep a part, set the start and end frames, and watch the selected range in the preview. Save a copy and play it through several times before moving on. The start and finish should make sense together, especially when the destination loops the animation.
Cutting is often an easy first change because you decide what gets removed. Don't cut the moment that explains what happens next just to meet a size limit. For a tutorial, a short pause can give the reader time to see the result of a click.
Remove empty edges, or shrink the whole frame
GIF Cropper keeps a rectangle from every frame. It offers aspect presets and number fields for the crop position and size. Check a later frame too, not only the first. A subject that moves across the picture can leave the box you picked at the start. Cropping doesn't have to cut into the action to be worth it. Sometimes a strip of unused border is enough.
Use GIF Resizer when you want the same composition at a smaller size. Choose the file and enter a smaller Width (px), keeping Lock Aspect Ratio on so the height follows. The page re-renders after each edit. Compare the dimensions and size under the two previews before downloading the copy ending in -resized.gif.
This resizer doesn't change the frame rate, so you can see what smaller dimensions do on their own before touching the motion. Make sure any text is still readable at the final display size.
Adjust motion and colors separately
GIF Optimizer has Frame Rate (fps) and Compression controls. It starts at 15 frames per second and 35% compression. Compression changes the number of palette colors, from 256 at the lowest setting down to 32 at the highest. It doesn't mean the file shrinks by that percentage.
Change one setting at a time. First try a frame rate that still makes the motion clear. Then increase Compression while watching gradients, faces, and small text. The optimizer reprocesses after every file or setting change, so wait for the result before comparing again. Its Original size and Output size lines show whether the attempt helped.
A lower target frame rate isn't the same as slowing the action down. The optimizer resamples the animation's frames. To change playback speed, use GIF Speed instead.
Test the saved copy in its destination
The optimizer saves a file ending in -optimized.gif. Play that downloaded file, check its loop, and try it where you plan to use it. A copy that looks fine in a small preview might not hold up when a chat app shows it larger. Keep the original and a decent in-between copy so you aren't building every new attempt on top of the most reduced version.
If the destination accepts video, GIF To Video lets you send the animation as an MP4 instead. Try it where you're posting it rather than assuming it'll behave like a GIF. Processing stays in your browser, but large animations can still take time and memory on your device.
Leave room for decoded frames
A compressed GIF still needs decoded frames while the browser processes it, so a small download can need a lot more working memory than its file size suggests. The browser processing guide walks through that with generated image samples and covers when a desktop editor makes more sense.