How to make your own Telegram stickers

To make your own Telegram sticker, open the sticker panel in any chat, tap the + button, pick a photo and tap Cut Out an Object: Telegram removes the background, and you can send the result or save it to a new sticker set. A photo someone sent you becomes a sticker through Create Sticker in the photo's menu. Stickers from your own video clips or animations are made in other software, must meet Telegram's size, length and format rules, and are uploaded as files through the official @Stickers bot.

Which way of making stickers fits you?

Telegram has three official routes, and catalog bots add a few extras. As of September 2026:

If you only want a funny sticker of your cat or a friend, the built-in editor is enough. If you draw, animate or cut video clips, you'll end up in @Stickers.

How do I turn a photo into a sticker on iPhone or Android?

Telegram added the sticker editor in April 2024. It is free for all users and works the same way on iPhone and Android.

From your phone's gallery

1. Open any chat, even Saved Messages, and tap the sticker icon in the message field. Switch to the stickers tab if emoji open first.
2. Tap the + button in the panel. The gallery opens with the title Create a sticker from a photo.
3. Pick a photo.
4. Tap Cut Out an Object, then tap the person, pet or object you want to keep. Telegram removes everything else.
5. Fix the edges with Erase and Restore, and tap Add Outline for the classic white border.
6. Add text, drawings, emoji or animated stickers on top if you like.
7. Finish: send the sticker straight away, tap Add to Favorites to keep it in your panel, or tap Add to Sticker Set to start a pack (next section).

From a photo in a chat

Since the March 2026 update, you don't need to save a photo first.

1. Tap a photo in any chat to open it full screen.
2. Open the menu: ⋯ on iPhone, ⋮ on Android.
3. Tap Create Sticker. The same editor opens with the photo already loaded, so continue from step 4 above.

The option appears only for photos. It is missing for videos, for paid media and for photos in chats where saving and forwarding are restricted.

How do I make a sticker pack and share it?

A pack (Telegram calls it a sticker set) lets friends install all your stickers at once.

1. In the editor, tap Add to Sticker Set, then New Sticker Set.
2. At Choose a name for your set., type the pack's title.
3. At Choose emojis that match your sticker, pick one or more emoji. Telegram suggests some based on the image, and these emoji work as shortcuts: typing 😂 in a chat offers the stickers tagged with it.
4. For the next sticker, repeat the editor steps and add it to the same set instead of a new one.

To share the pack, send anyone one of its stickers: tapping it offers the whole set. Every set also has its own t.me/addstickers/... link.

Open a set you own later and Telegram shows editing options: Create a New Sticker, Add an Existing Sticker (from any other pack), reorder, rename, and Delete Sticker Set. Deleting is final: in Telegram's words, it removes the set for all users.

How do I make animated or video stickers?

The built-in editor lets you place animated stickers, emoji and GIFs on a photo, but a sticker from your own video clip or animation starts as a file made in another app. That file has to meet Telegram's rules, and it goes into a pack through @Stickers.

What size and format do the files need?

These are the rules on Telegram's sticker platform page, checked in September 2026. They apply whether you work in Photoshop, Canva, After Effects or a video editor:

Telegram's own tip for static stickers: a transparent background, a white stroke and a black shadow make the sticker stand out in a chat. Video stickers need Telegram 8.5 or newer to display.

How do I upload the files with @Stickers?

Stickers (@Stickers) is Telegram's official bot, used by about 650,000 people a month according to its Telegram page. It publishes packs of every type, without watermarks.

With the Mini App. Since August 2025, @Stickers opens as a Mini App where you create sticker and emoji packs, manage the ones you own and view usage statistics in one screen. Open the bot and launch the app, or open t.me/stickers?startapp. If Mini Apps are new to you, read what a Telegram Mini App is.

With text commands, which work in any Telegram app, including Telegram Desktop and Telegram Web:

1. Send /newpack (or /newemojipack for custom emoji) and give the pack a name.
2. Send your file as a document, not as a compressed photo: Send without compression on Android, Send as File on iPhone, Send as a file in Telegram Desktop.
3. Pick an emoji for the sticker, then send the next file.
4. Send /publish and choose the short name that becomes the pack's link.

Later, /addsticker adds a sticker to an existing pack and /stats shows how often your stickers are used. For emoji that take on the text color of a message, Telegram's docs describe an /adaptive command while you create the emoji set.

Can a bot make the sticker for me?

Several bots in our rating of sticker and emoji bots help with steps Telegram leaves to you. Their cards describe what each one does; treat them as helpers next to @Stickers, not a replacement.

• Stickerizer (@StickerizerBot) opens a visual Mini App editor instead of a string of commands. It comes from a named developer, but its bio doesn't detail the editing tools. The trade-offs are laid out in Stickers Bot vs Stickerizer.
• emojimix (@EmojiMixBot) needs no photo: type @EmojiMixBot 🔥 🦄 in any chat and pick a combined emoji sticker. It can only combine pairs that Google's Emoji Kitchen already has artwork for.
• AI Background Remover (@AI_Background_Remover_Bot) returns a cutout with a transparent background, which helps when you prepare a PNG for @Stickers on a computer. It is free, with an English interface.

One thing to know before you let a third-party bot build a pack: Telegram's Bot API requires the link of such a set to end in _by_ plus the bot's username, and the bot keeps the right to edit that set.

What if something doesn't work?

• No + button in the sticker panel. Update Telegram. The editor has existed since April 2024, and Create Sticker in the photo menu arrived in March 2026.
• No Create Sticker on a photo. It's a video, paid media, or the chat restricts saving content. For your own pictures, start from the sticker panel instead.
• The cut-out grabbed the wrong object. Tap the object you want, then clean the edges with Erase and Restore.
• @Stickers rejects an image. Check that one side is exactly 512 px, the other is no larger, and the file is PNG or WEBP sent as a file rather than as a photo.
• A video sticker fails. Shorten it to 3 seconds, remove the audio track, encode it with VP9 in WEBM and keep it under 256 KB.
• The set is full. Start a new set and share both links.
• Friends can't use your emoji. Using custom emoji sets requires Telegram Premium on their side.

Where to go next

To compare every sticker tool in the catalog, from the official bot to emoji mixers, open the sticker and emoji bots rating. If your photo needs work before it becomes a sticker, such as a cleaner cutout or better quality, the AI photo editing rating lists bots for that.