A looping animated bar that drops straight onto your timeline
A search-bar overlay is a small graphic that sits on top of your footage and types out a word or link. Because it ships as a transparent, looping file, you don't have to animate anything in your editor — you import it, position it, and it plays itself. This page walks through adding the overlay in the most common editors and getting it to sit perfectly in frame.
Create your overlay and export a transparent GIF or an HD WebM in one click.
Open the Animated Search Bar →The pattern is identical everywhere: your video goes on the base layer, the overlay goes on a layer above it. In CapCut, tap Overlay, add the GIF, then drag and scale it. In Canva, upload the GIF and drop it onto your video element. In Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve, import the file and drop it on video track 2 — both read the alpha channel automatically. In After Effects, import the GIF or, better, the PNG frame sequence for lossless transparency, and the typing animation plays without any keyframing.
For vertical video, the top third is the natural home for a search bar — it reads like the address bar of a phone and stays clear of the captions and UI at the bottom. Stretch the clip's duration to cover as much of the video as you want; the loop hides the seam. If you only want one typing pass, trim the overlay to a single loop length and let it sit on the final frame afterwards.
Export at 2× or 3× scale so the bar stays sharp when scaled up to a 1080×1920 canvas. Choose the transparent GIF when you need a guaranteed cut-out in any editor. Choose the HD WebM for the crispest text and smallest file when a solid bar is acceptable. Choose the PNG sequence when your editor supports image sequences and you want true, soft-edged alpha. If the source clip isn't vertical yet, run it through the video converter first.
CapCut, InShot, Canva, Premiere Pro, After Effects and DaVinci Resolve all import a GIF as an overlay or media clip. Place your video on the base track and the GIF above it.
Set the export scale to 2× or 3× before exporting so the bar renders at higher resolution and stays crisp across a full HD or vertical frame.
Yes. Because the GIF loops, you just extend its duration on the timeline to match the segment where you want it visible.