How to Move Telegram Stickers to WhatsApp

There is no button that sends a Telegram sticker pack to WhatsApp. To move stickers across, you need the sticker image files, you convert them to the format WhatsApp accepts (square WebP images with a transparent background, within WhatsApp's size limits, grouped into packs of a minimum and maximum size), and you add them to WhatsApp with a sticker maker app or WhatsApp's own sticker tools.

How hard that is depends on the kind of sticker. Static stickers convert easily; animated and video stickers take more work and sometimes lose quality. This guide explains each type, the steps on Android, iPhone and a computer, and the permission question you should answer first.

Before you start: whose stickers are they?

Every sticker pack was drawn by someone. On Telegram, packs are shared freely inside the app, but that does not mean the artist agreed to have their work copied to other apps.

• Your own stickers: you made them, so you can use them anywhere. This is the easiest case, because you also have the original files.
• Packs from a friend, a community or a brand: ask. Many creators are happy to share their files or publish a WhatsApp version themselves.
• Packs from artists who sell their work or rely on it: copying them into another app, and especially sharing them onward, can infringe their rights. Look for an official WhatsApp version from the artist first.
• Official Telegram stickers and Premium stickers: these belong to Telegram or its partners and are meant for Telegram.

Personal use and redistribution are also different things. Making a pack for yourself is a different act from publishing a pack in a store or sharing it widely. This article is general information, not legal advice; if you plan to publish a pack built from someone else's art, get their permission.

Why there is no export button

It helps to understand why this takes several steps. Telegram and WhatsApp are separate apps from separate companies, and neither has a reason to build a pipe into the other. Their sticker formats also differ: Telegram's animated stickers are vector animations that Telegram's apps draw on the fly, while WhatsApp expects ready-made WebP images within fixed size limits. On top of that, a sticker pack on Telegram is shared as a link to artwork that stays on Telegram's servers, so the app never needs to hand you the files. Every method in this guide is a way of getting from Telegram's format to WhatsApp's by hand, which is why starting from original files, when you have them, is always the shortest path.

Telegram's three kinds of stickers

Knowing which kind you have tells you how much work the move will be. Telegram's own sticker documentation describes three formats.

Static stickers. Still images. Telegram stores them as PNG or WebP files with a transparent background, with one side 512 pixels long. These convert to WhatsApp with very little effort.

Animated stickers. The smooth, vector-style animations, often with simple flat colours. They use a format based on Lottie, a vector animation format, saved with a TGS file extension. WhatsApp does not accept this format, so it has to be rendered into frames and converted to an animated WebP. Detail and smoothness can suffer.

Video stickers. Short looping clips, saved as WebM videos with a transparent background. They also need converting to an animated WebP for WhatsApp.

How to tell which one you have: open the sticker pack in Telegram. If the stickers stay still, they are static. If they move, they are either animated or video stickers. Animated ones tend to look like clean cartoons with flat colours; video stickers can look like real footage or textured artwork. You usually do not need to know which of the two moving types it is until the conversion step, where the file extension tells you.

WhatsApp's sticker requirements

WhatsApp publishes guidelines for sticker packs. At the time of writing, its guidelines for static stickers say:

• each sticker is a WebP image of exactly 512 by 512 pixels;
• each sticker has a transparent background;
• each static sticker stays within a file size limit (WhatsApp states it as 100 KB);
• a pack contains at least 3 and at most 30 stickers;
• a pack has a small tray icon, a square image shown in the sticker picker.

Animated stickers have their own, larger size limit and rules on length and frame timing. WhatsApp also recommends leaving a small transparent margin around the artwork so stickers do not touch the edge of the canvas.

Two consequences are worth noting now:

• Telegram stickers are not always 512 by 512. Telegram only requires one side to be 512, so a wide sticker may be 512 by 300. For WhatsApp, it has to be placed on a square transparent canvas.
• A pack must not mix types. Keep static and animated stickers in separate packs.

WhatsApp can change these rules, and sticker maker apps usually apply them automatically. If a pack is refused, the requirements are the first thing to check.

Step 1: get the sticker files

This is the hardest step, because Telegram's apps are designed to send stickers inside Telegram, not to export them.

If you made the stickers yourself

Use your original files. When you created the pack through Telegram's official @Stickers bot, you uploaded image files; those originals on your phone or computer are your best source. They are full quality and you already own them. If you have lost the originals, the methods below also work for your own pack.

Ask the creator

Many sticker artists share a link to their packs elsewhere or will send the files. This is the cleanest route for someone else's pack. It also settles the permission question.

Use a sticker downloader bot

Some third-party bots on Telegram take a sticker you send them and return the image file, sometimes the whole pack as an archive. They are not run by Telegram, so be careful:

1. Only use a bot that asks for nothing but the sticker. A bot that asks for your phone number, a login code or payment for a basic conversion is a warning sign.
2. Never log in to anything through a link a bot sends. A downloader has no reason to need your account.
3. Expect the returned files to be in Telegram's formats (PNG or WebP for static, TGS or WebM for moving ones). Some bots also offer conversions.

The guide on how to find Telegram bots safely explains how to judge a bot before you use it, and are Telegram bots safe covers what a bot can and cannot see.

Screenshot and cut out (static stickers only)

For one or two static stickers, a screenshot can work:

1. Open the sticker full size in Telegram, ideally on a plain background.
2. Take a screenshot.
3. Crop it in a photo editor and remove the background so it becomes transparent.

This loses quality and takes time, because removing the background by hand is fiddly. It is a last resort for a single favourite sticker, not a way to move a pack.

Step 2: convert the files to WhatsApp's format

Static stickers

If your sticker maker app handles resizing, you can skip most of this. Doing it yourself on a computer gives cleaner results:

1. Open the image in an image editor that supports transparency.
2. Create a new square canvas, 512 by 512 pixels, with a transparent background.
3. Place the sticker in the middle, leaving a small margin all round.
4. Export as WebP. If WebP is not available, export as PNG and let your sticker app convert it.
5. Check the file size. If it is above WhatsApp's limit, lower the export quality slightly or reduce the number of colours, then export again.

Do not enlarge a small sticker much beyond its original size. Upscaling makes edges blurry; it is better to leave a wider transparent margin.

Animated (TGS) stickers

An animated Telegram sticker is a set of vector instructions, not a sequence of images. To use it on WhatsApp:

1. Render it into frames, using a tool that supports Lottie animations. Some downloader bots and converters do this step for you.
2. Combine the frames into an animated WebP at 512 by 512 pixels.
3. Reduce the frame count or colours if the file is above WhatsApp's animated size limit.
4. Check the result loops smoothly and the background is still transparent.

Expect some loss. Telegram's animated stickers can be very smooth, and squeezing them under WhatsApp's file size limit sometimes means dropping frames.

Video (WebM) stickers

1. Convert the WebM video to an animated WebP, keeping the transparency. Not every converter keeps the transparent layer, so check the result on a dark and a light background.
2. Resize to 512 by 512 with margins.
3. Shorten or reduce quality if the file is too large.

If the converted sticker has a black or white box around it, the converter discarded the transparency. Try another converter, or a setting that preserves the alpha channel (the transparency layer).

Choosing which stickers to bring across

A Telegram pack can hold more stickers than WhatsApp allows in one pack, and many large Telegram packs mix still and moving stickers. Before converting anything, plan the WhatsApp packs.

1. List the stickers you actually use. Most people send a handful from any pack. Converting only those saves time and keeps the WhatsApp picker tidy.
2. Split by type. Put static stickers in one pack and animated ones in another, since WhatsApp packs cannot mix them.
3. Split by size. If you want more than WhatsApp's maximum, divide the stickers into several packs with clear names, such as the pack name followed by part one and part two.
4. Order them deliberately. Sticker maker apps usually keep the order you add files. Put the most used ones first, so they appear at the start of the pack in WhatsApp.
5. Respect the minimum. If you only want two stickers from a pack, either add a third or use WhatsApp's own single-sticker tools instead of a pack.

Designing for WhatsApp's chat screen

Stickers that look good on Telegram can look slightly off on WhatsApp, because the two apps show them on different backgrounds and at different sizes. A few adjustments help.

• Outlines. WhatsApp's own design guidance suggests a light outline around the artwork, so a sticker stays readable on dark and busy chat wallpapers. Many Telegram stickers already have one. If yours does not and it disappears against a dark background, adding a thin outline in your image editor fixes it.
• Margins. A small transparent border keeps the artwork from touching the edges of the 512 by 512 canvas. Too much border makes the sticker look small next to others.
• Dark mode. Check every sticker on both a light and a dark background before building the pack. Dark lines on a transparent background can vanish in dark mode.
• Text inside stickers. Small lettering that is readable on Telegram can become hard to read once compressed under WhatsApp's file size limit. If a sticker relies on text, check it at actual size on your phone.

Making the tray icon

The tray icon is the small picture that represents the pack in WhatsApp's sticker picker. WhatsApp's guidelines describe it as a small square image with its own size limit. Most sticker maker apps create one from your first sticker. If you make your own, choose the most recognisable sticker in the pack, crop it tightly, and keep the background transparent, so the pack is easy to spot among others.

Step 3: add the stickers to WhatsApp

Option A: a sticker maker app (Android and iPhone)

WhatsApp lets third-party apps add sticker packs. Many sticker maker apps exist on both app stores. In general terms they work like this:

1. Install a sticker maker app from your phone's official store. Read the reviews and the permissions it asks for. It needs access to the images you choose, not your contacts or messages.
2. Create a new pack and give it a name and author.
3. Add your converted stickers, at least three of them. Most apps let you crop, remove backgrounds and resize, and they check WhatsApp's rules for you.
4. Choose a tray icon, or let the app generate one.
5. Tap the option to add the pack to WhatsApp, and confirm in WhatsApp.
6. Open a WhatsApp chat, tap the sticker icon, and your pack appears in the list.

Some free apps show adverts or push paid upgrades. You do not need to pay to add a basic pack.

Option B: WhatsApp's own sticker tools

Recent versions of WhatsApp include ways to make a single sticker from an image on some platforms, and WhatsApp Web and Desktop let you turn an uploaded image into a sticker. This is handy for one or two stickers:

1. In a chat, open the sticker picker and look for an option to create a sticker.
2. Choose your converted image.
3. Adjust it if offered, then send it.
4. To keep it, mark it as a favourite from the sticker's options.

This creates individual stickers, not a named pack. For a full pack, a sticker maker app is still the usual route.

Option C: receive them from someone who already has the pack

If a friend has already added the pack on WhatsApp, they can send you stickers from it. You can then save each one to your favourites from the sticker's options. That only works once someone has done steps 1 to 3.

The whole process on a computer

A computer gives you the most control, especially for animated stickers. A typical workflow:

1. Collect the files: originals, files from the creator, or a downloaded pack.
2. Convert each file to a 512 by 512 WebP with a transparent background, as described above.
3. Name the files clearly, for example in the order you want them in the pack.
4. Move the finished files to your phone, through a cable, cloud storage or by sending them to yourself.
5. Open your sticker maker app on the phone and build the pack from those files.

Example: a small business has a pack of twelve static stickers with its mascot, made by its own designer. The designer already has the PNG originals. On a computer, they place each one on a 512 by 512 transparent canvas, export WebP files, check each is under the size limit, and send the folder to a staff phone. A sticker maker app turns them into one pack, which staff then share with customers who chat on WhatsApp.

Platform notes

Android

Android gives sticker maker apps direct access to the files you pick, so building a pack from downloaded WebP or PNG files is straightforward. Downloaded sticker files usually land in your Downloads folder or in the folder of the app you used. If a pack does not appear in WhatsApp after adding it, force-close WhatsApp and open it again.

iPhone

On iPhone, files you receive go into the Files app or Photos depending on how you saved them. Sticker maker apps can usually read from both. Keeping sticker files together in one folder in Files makes them easier to find when the sticker app asks for them.

WhatsApp Web and Desktop

You can create individual stickers there from images, but you cannot install a full third-party pack from a computer alone. Build packs on your phone; they then appear on linked devices.

A worked example with animated stickers

Example: someone wants to bring an animated pack from a friend, a cartoon cat drawn as a Telegram animated sticker set, to WhatsApp. The friend has agreed. Here is how it goes, step by step, and where the losses happen.

1. Getting the files. The friend still has the original animation project, but no WhatsApp version. They export each animation and send the TGS files. A downloader bot would have given the same files.
2. Rendering. Each TGS file is rendered into frames with a converter that supports Lottie. The output is a short sequence of images per sticker.
3. Building animated WebP files. The frames are combined into animated WebP files at 512 by 512 pixels with a transparent background.
4. Fitting the size limit. Several files are too large. Reducing the number of frames brings them under the limit. The animation now looks slightly less fluid than on Telegram, but the motion is still clear.
5. Checking transparency. One file shows a black square behind the cat. The converter had dropped the transparency for that file; re-running it with the transparency option fixes it.
6. Building the pack. The finished files go into an animated pack in a sticker maker app, with the tray icon made from a still frame of the cat.

The result is a working animated pack. It is not identical to the Telegram version, and it would not be fair to expect it to be. Telegram's vector animations are designed for Telegram's renderer, and WhatsApp's limits favour smaller, simpler animations.

Sharing the pack with others

Once a pack is in your WhatsApp, the simplest way to share it is to send stickers from it. Recipients can save the ones they like to their favourites. Some sticker maker apps also offer a share link or a way to export the pack for others to add through the same app.

Before sharing widely, go back to the permission question. A pack you converted from a friend's art for your own use is one thing; posting it in a sticker store or a large group as if it were yours is another. If the artist agreed, credit them in the pack's author field.

Checklist before you add the pack

1. Permission to use the artwork, or your own art.
2. Stickers sorted into static and animated packs.
3. Each sticker on a 512 by 512 transparent canvas, with a small margin.
4. Each file within WhatsApp's size limit for its type.
5. Between three and thirty stickers per pack.
6. Tray icon set.
7. Each sticker checked on a light and a dark background.
8. Sticker maker app from the official store, with no request for your contacts or logins.

Troubleshooting

The pack will not add to WhatsApp

Check, in this order:

1. At least three stickers in the pack.
2. All stickers in the pack are the same type, all static or all animated.
3. Each image is exactly 512 by 512 pixels.
4. Each file is within WhatsApp's size limit for its type.
5. A tray icon is set.
6. WhatsApp is updated.

Stickers show a black or white box

The transparency was lost during conversion. Re-export with a transparent background, and check the converter keeps the alpha channel. JPG files cannot hold transparency at all, so never save a sticker as JPG along the way.

Animated stickers arrive frozen

The pack was probably built as static, or the animation was converted to a single frame. Make sure the file is an animated WebP and that your sticker app put it in an animated pack.

Stickers look blurry or tiny

Blurry stickers were usually upscaled from a small screenshot. Tiny ones have too much empty margin. Start from the original file if possible, and keep the artwork filling most of the canvas with a modest margin.

The bot asks for a login or payment

Stop using it. A sticker downloader has no legitimate need for your phone number, login code or account. The guide to never sharing your login code explains why this matters.

Going the other way: WhatsApp to Telegram

People often want the reverse too. Telegram supports importing sticker sets from other apps, and some sticker maker apps offer an option to send a pack to Telegram. You can also make your own pack directly in Telegram with the official @Stickers bot, uploading images you created. Our guide on creating a Telegram sticker pack covers the requirements and steps, which are close to what you prepared for WhatsApp.

If you design stickers for both apps, keep your master files at full quality, with transparent backgrounds and a square canvas. From those, export a Telegram version and a WhatsApp version, rather than converting one app's copy into the other's.

What to do next

Once the pack works, a little housekeeping saves you from repeating the whole process later.

• Keep the converted files. Store the finished WebP files and the tray icon together in one folder, backed up somewhere other than your phone. If you change phones or reinstall WhatsApp and the pack disappears, you can rebuild it in minutes instead of converting everything again.
• Keep the originals separately. Converted files are already compressed. If you later want a better version, or a version for another app, start again from the originals rather than from the WhatsApp copies.
• Add new stickers in batches. When the creator adds stickers to the Telegram pack, convert the new ones and add them to your WhatsApp pack through the same sticker maker app, staying under the maximum.
• Make your own next time. If you enjoyed this, designing your own stickers avoids the permission question entirely, and you can publish them on both apps from the same master files.

Common mistakes

• Copying an artist's pack and sharing it widely without asking. Personal use and redistribution are different, and many artists depend on their work.
• Mixing static and animated stickers in one WhatsApp pack. Split them into two packs.
• Saving as JPG at any step. It destroys the transparent background.
• Upscaling small screenshots. Use originals or downloaded files instead.
• Ignoring the minimum pack size. WhatsApp needs at least three stickers in a pack.
• Giving a bot or app your Telegram login. No sticker tool needs it.
• Expecting Premium or special Telegram stickers to work elsewhere. Some Telegram stickers have effects that only Telegram renders.

FAQ

Can I export a whole Telegram sticker pack to WhatsApp in one go?

Not from Telegram itself. Some third-party bots download a whole pack as files, and some sticker maker apps can import a folder at once. You still need to make sure the result meets WhatsApp's rules.

Do animated Telegram stickers work on WhatsApp?

They can, after conversion to animated WebP. Telegram's vector animations do not always convert perfectly, and quality may drop to fit WhatsApp's size limit.

Will the person who made the pack know?

No, nothing notifies them. That is why the permission question is yours to answer before copying their work.

Why does WhatsApp say my stickers are invalid?

Usually because of size or dimensions: each must be 512 by 512 pixels and within the file size limit, and the pack needs at least three stickers of the same type.

Can I move custom emoji too?

Telegram custom emoji are a Telegram feature and have no direct WhatsApp equivalent. You could turn an emoji image into a sticker, but it would be a sticker, not an emoji, and Telegram's emoji images are small, so they look rough when enlarged. The guide to setting a custom emoji status explains how custom emoji work on Telegram.

Is it safe to use sticker maker apps?

Most are harmless, but check reviews and permissions. A sticker app needs the images you select and nothing more. Uninstall any that ask for your contacts, messages or account logins.

Summary

Moving Telegram stickers to WhatsApp takes three steps: get the files, convert them to 512 by 512 transparent WebP images within WhatsApp's size limits, and add them as a pack of at least three with a sticker maker app or WhatsApp's own tools. Static stickers are easy; animated and video stickers need conversion and may lose some smoothness. Start from your own originals or the creator's files whenever you can, and ask before copying someone else's art.