Pausing a GIF with details/summary

Clever Details/Summary Hack Pauses GIFs — and Defers Their Download

Steve Faulkner has a neat trick for taming animated GIFs: wrap the image in a <details>/<summary> element and layer a static JPG on top. Toggling the widget reveals the animation beneath, giving users manual control over playback.

Adrian Roselli notes the approach offers a “quick and dirty” path to meeting WCAG Success Criterion 2.2.2 (Pause, Stop, Hide) — a common accessibility pain point with auto-playing GIFs.

I forked the demo and flipped the layering so the JPG shows first. Adding loading="lazy" to both images had a side benefit: the GIF doesn’t fetch until the user explicitly hits play. That turns the same pattern into a bandwidth-saving technique, not just an accessibility stopgap.