Quick answer
To turn a GIF into a WhatsApp sticker, crop it square, resize to exactly 512 × 512 pixels, trim it to 10 seconds or less, and export it as an animated WebP of 500 KB or less with frames no shorter than 8 ms. Then add it to a pack of at least three stickers and import that pack through a sticker app.
Get the Sticko app
The target you are converting to
An animated WhatsApp sticker is an animated WebP file, not a GIF. GIFs are usually larger, have a smaller colour palette and no real transparency, so the conversion is a genuine re-encode rather than a rename.
| Requirement | Static stickers | Animated stickers |
|---|---|---|
| Dimensions | 512 × 512 px | 512 × 512 px |
| File format | WebP | Animated WebP |
| Max file size per sticker | 100 KB | 500 KB |
| Animation length | — | 10 seconds or less |
| Minimum frame duration | — | 8 ms |
| Tray icon | 96 × 96 px, max 50 KB | 96 × 96 px, max 50 KB (static) |
| Stickers per pack | 3 minimum, 30 maximum | 3 minimum, 30 maximum |
| Mixing types | A pack is all static or all animated — never both | Same |
Step 1 — make it square and 512 × 512
Most GIFs and nearly all video is wider than it is tall, so something has to be cropped. Crop to the subject rather than scaling the whole frame down: a sticker is viewed at roughly 64 px in a chat bubble, and a full 16:9 frame squeezed into a square reads as a grey smudge at that size.
- Crop to a square around the subject first, then resize to 512 × 512.
- Keep the subject filling most of the frame.
- Cut the background out if you can — transparency is what makes a sticker look like a sticker rather than a photo.
Step 2 — trim to 10 seconds or less
WhatsApp's documented limit is a total animation duration of 10 seconds or less, with individual frames no shorter than 8 ms. In practice the useful length is far below the ceiling: a sticker is a reaction, and a second or two is usually the whole idea. Trimming also does most of the work of getting under the file-size limit.
Step 3 — get under 500 KB
500 KB is the hard ceiling for an animated sticker. A converted GIF frequently lands well over it on the first attempt. The levers, in the order worth pulling:
- Shorten the clip. Fewer frames is the largest single saving.
- Drop the frame rate. 12–15 fps is usually indistinguishable at sticker size and can halve the file.
- Trim dead frames at the start and end where nothing moves.
- Simplify the background, or remove it entirely.
- Only then increase compression — pushing quality down first tends to produce banding while saving less than the steps above.
If the result looks blocky, you almost certainly compressed before shortening. Undo, cut the length, and try again.
Step 4 — mind the first frame
WhatsApp ends the animation on the first frame after looping, so that frame is what the recipient stares at once the motion stops. WhatsApp's own guidance is that the first frame should say it all. A clip that fades in from black gives you a sticker that settles on a black square — start on the complete image instead.
Step 5 — build the pack
A single sticker is not importable on its own. You need at least 3 and at most 30 in a pack, a static 96 × 96 tray icon of 50 KB or less, and every sticker in the pack has to be animated — a pack cannot mix animated and static stickers. The finished pack is then imported through a sticker app.
Get the Sticko app
WhatsApp only accepts sticker packs from an installed app, so the last step always happens outside the browser. Sticko is free on Android and iPhone, and adds any pack to WhatsApp in a couple of taps.
