Abstract: A method for optimizing an animation file by reducing its size without substantially modifying the quality of the animation as viewed by a user is disclosed. The solution includes assigning a metadata tag to each frame in the animation file and creating a metadata playback file to store a sequence of frames that should be played during playback of the optimized animation file. Each animation frame in the original animation file is then compared to all other previous non-repetitive frames to determine if the current frame is substantially similar to a previous one. When a frame is determined to be substantially similar, it is deleted in the optimized animation file, while a reference to the previous similar frame is included in the sequence of frames stored in the metadata playback file.