diff --git a/backend/app/services/importer.py b/backend/app/services/importer.py
index 50fe479..fb9d0e3 100644
--- a/backend/app/services/importer.py
+++ b/backend/app/services/importer.py
@@ -860,8 +860,26 @@ class Importer:
                 pass
 
     def _transparency_pct(self, source: Path) -> float:
-        """Fraction of fully-transparent pixels in the image. 0.0 if no alpha."""
+        """Fraction of fully-transparent pixels in the image. 0.0 if no alpha.
+
+        For animated formats (multi-frame WebP / GIF / APNG), short-circuit
+        to 0.0 instead of decoding every frame. PIL's `getchannel("A")`
+        forces a full decode of all frames in an animated image, which for
+        a large animated WebP takes 5+ minutes and blows past the Celery
+        soft+hard time limits (300s/360s → SIGKILL). Operator-flagged
+        2026-05-26. Transparency analysis on a multi-frame image isn't
+        meaningful for art-curation purposes anyway — different frames
+        have different alpha — so the existing too_transparent skip rule
+        is bypassed entirely for animated content.
+        """
         with Image.open(source) as im:
+            if getattr(im, "is_animated", False):
+                log.info(
+                    "skipping transparency check for animated image %s "
+                    "(n_frames=%d) — avoids multi-frame decode timeout",
+                    source, getattr(im, "n_frames", 0),
+                )
+                return 0.0
             if im.mode not in ("RGBA", "LA") and not (
                 im.mode == "P" and "transparency" in im.info
             ):
diff --git a/backend/app/utils/phash.py b/backend/app/utils/phash.py
index 8d00cb3..a610e96 100644
--- a/backend/app/utils/phash.py
+++ b/backend/app/utils/phash.py
@@ -13,8 +13,21 @@ HASH_SIZE = 8
 
 def compute_phash(pil_image) -> str | None:
     """Perceptual hash of an opened PIL image, as a hex string. None on any
-    failure (videos/unreadable/non-image)."""
+    failure (videos/unreadable/non-image).
+
+    For animated images (multi-frame WebP/GIF/APNG), explicitly seek to
+    frame 0 first. Without this, some PIL operations downstream of
+    imagehash.phash (convert("L"), resize) can iterate all frames and
+    blow past Celery's hard time limit on large animations
+    (operator-flagged 2026-05-26 against animated WebPs). The pHash of
+    frame 0 is the conventional choice for animated content.
+    """
     try:
+        if getattr(pil_image, "is_animated", False):
+            try:
+                pil_image.seek(0)
+            except Exception:
+                pass
         return str(imagehash.phash(pil_image, hash_size=HASH_SIZE))
     except Exception:
         return None