Easy Tech TutsHow to Enable GIFs on Microsoft Teams Easily 2026
By Impran M N
When GIFs suddenly stop working in Teams, the fix usually lives in either your personal privacy settings or an organization-wide admin policy, depending on your account type. This guide covers turning on connected experiences in your personal settings, and for administrators, navigating the Teams Admin Center to enable Giphy content in messaging policies. It also covers a few troubleshooting steps for frozen or static previews.
01Locate the GIF option
Find the Emoji, GIFs, and Stickers icon inside the message compose box.
02Check personal privacy settings
Open your user settings, go to the privacy section, and toggle on optional connected experiences to allow external media loads.
03Check OS accessibility settings
Confirm your Windows or macOS accessibility settings have animation effects turned on, since disabling them can freeze GIF previews.
04Check the admin messaging policy
Administrators should log into the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, open the Teams admin dashboard, and go to messaging policies for the organization.
05Enable Giphy and save
Switch the Giphy in conversations toggle to On, set your preferred content rating, save the policy, and clear local app caches to sync the change.
Frequently asked questions
Why don't I see the GIF icon in Teams anymore?
This is usually tied to either a personal connected experiences setting being off, or an organization-wide messaging policy disabling Giphy content.
How do administrators enable GIFs organization-wide?
In the Teams Admin Center, open messaging policies, select the organization's default profile, and switch the Giphy in conversations toggle to On.
Can I control what kind of GIF content shows up?
Yes, admins can set custom content rating constraints to filter out unapproved media for workplace use.
Why do my GIFs look frozen instead of animated?
This is often caused by operating system accessibility settings that disable animation effects, so check those settings on Windows or macOS.
Watch the full walkthrough
The same steps, demonstrated on screen from start to finish.
