GIF Launcher

Desktop app for Windows

GIF Launcher

Put a GIF on your friend’s screen. Not in a chat, on the screen.

Paste a link or pick one from your library and press Play. It appears on top of whatever everyone in your channel is doing, at the same moment. Below, two of us in one channel. Turn the sound on.

On your phone? Open on your PC.

Free to use, Windows 10 and 11. The download here is the original: it plays the most kinds of links and is not code-signed yet. The Microsoft Store version is signed. Pro from €3.99.

Some features need Pro.

Music: Bit Shift by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Press Play. It lands on this page.

A copy of the launcher, built for this page. Whatever you play lands here, and on the friend’s screen beside it.

GIF Launcher PRO

Last played

Last played in channel

Nothing played in this channel yet. Play something and it shows up here, for everyone in it.

Your friend’s screen, same channel, busy with something else

Click a card, or press Play. Shift + click opens a second window. Drag what lands, close it with Esc.

Anything you can link

Search GIFs, stickers, video and sound inside the app. Suggestions come as you type, a filter narrows it to one source or to transparent GIFs, and every card shows where it is from as you pass over it.

Or paste a link. Clips open as overlays on every screen in the channel, in sync, and sounds play through everyone’s speakers. GIFs and short sound effects are unlimited on the free plan, plus 5 videos or other links a day; Pro has no limit.

  • Giphy
  • Tenor
  • Tumblr GIFs
  • Video links
  • Sound links
  • MP4 and WebM
  • MP3

Your reactions, one key away

Everything you play lands in Recent. Star what you keep, drop cards onto folders, and give the ones you use most a key. It works while a game has the screen.

The app’s own keys are yours to set too: close everything, stop sounds, pause, mute, open search, show the launcher, the mic. Played here shows what the whole channel has sent, so the good ones never get lost in a scroll.

It lands where you put it

Pick a spot on the screen and a size, and that is where it opens. It does not take focus: a game keeps its mouse, a call keeps its window.

Several can be open at once, each in its own slot. Shift and click a card to open another beside the first, and one key closes them all.

Everyone starts on the same message

A play goes to the server, and the server sends it to everyone in the channel, you included. Your own copy waits for that echo like everyone else’s, so nobody sees it first. Videos keep going together: pause, seek and speed follow the person who played it.

Clips and sounds from different sites are brought closer in loudness on the way in, so the next one is not suddenly much louder than the last.

A channel is a room

Text chat runs beside the plays, GIFs included. Voice holds four people, eight once someone in the channel has Pro. The server keeps the last fifty messages in memory and never writes them to disk.

Click a name and their card opens: their background, their avatar, and on the back the signature GIFs they picked.

Make it look like yours

Six palettes, four layouts and four worlds: Liquid Glass, Fluent, Nebula and Deck, each redrawn around one idea, down to its sounds. Or Your colours: place up to three and the whole app is drawn from them.

Midnight and Daylight are free. The rest come with Pro.

Free to use. Pro for more.

Free

€0

  • GIFs and short sound effects, unlimited, with safe search always on
  • 5 videos, music or any links a day, on every screen in the channel
  • 2 GIFs and 2 sounds on screen at once, placed where you want
  • Channels up to 10 people, invite links, chat and voice
  • Recent, favourites, folders and a keyboard shortcut on any card
  • Midnight and Daylight themes, your own avatar and card
Download

Pro PRO

€3.99a month, or €29.99 a year

  • Everything in Free, and
  • No daily limit on videos, music and links
  • As many windows and sounds at once as you like
  • Bigger channels and voice rooms
  • Every theme, the four worlds and Your colours
  • A GIF avatar and more signatures on your card

Founder price: it stays yours for as long as you stay subscribed.

Sold through Creem. The licence key unlocks Pro in Settings.

Support: support@hedaron.com

Renews until you cancel. Full refund within 14 days of your first payment. Terms · Privacy

Questions

Do my friends need the app?

Yes. The app is what puts the GIF on their screen. They install it, join your channel with its invite code, and that is the whole setup. No account.

Can someone flood my screen?

Channels have roles: viewers watch, broadcasters play. Private channels take a password, anyone can be blocked, and the server rate-limits plays per person. Ctrl+Shift+Backspace closes everything on your screen at once.

What does the server keep?

It passes each play to the people in your channel and remembers the recent ones so Played here works. It does not look at what is played.

Windows says it protected my PC.

The installer here is not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen does not recognise it. Choose More info, then Run anyway. After that the app updates itself. If you would rather skip the warning, the Microsoft Store version is signed and installs without it.

This download or the Microsoft Store?

The same app and the same channels; friends on either version play together. The download here is the original and plays the most kinds of links. The Store version is signed by Microsoft and updates through the Store. Pro works on both.

Mac or Linux?

Windows only for now. Both are on the list.

Setting it up, step by step · Release notes

How it was built

It started with my friends and memes that had only just started going around: we wanted to see them together, live, on our own screens, and make a moment out of it while they were still funny.

Electron, Node and a WebSocket server, written alone. First idea to a released installer in two months. The hard part was never the playback. It was making two machines agree on when, over connections that do not care about your timing. The proxy came later, once it was clear that half the fun is pasting a link from somewhere that does not want to be embedded.

On your phone? Open on your PC.