Quick answer
Most WhatsApp sticker problems come from one of three causes: an out-of-date WhatsApp, a sticker tray that has not been rebuilt since the import, or a pack that breaks WhatsApp's format rules. Updating WhatsApp and force-closing it resolves the majority; format problems have to be fixed by the pack's publisher.
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Start here: the two fixes that solve most cases
- Update WhatsApp. Sticker features have shipped in specific releases, and a version even slightly behind can fail to display packs it does not understand.
- Force-close WhatsApp and reopen it. The sticker tray is built at launch, so a pack imported while WhatsApp was running in the background may not appear until it restarts.
Work through the specific symptoms below only if both of those have been tried.
"Pack already exists"
Not an error. WhatsApp is refusing a duplicate import because the pack is already installed. Open the sticker tray and it will be there. This message appears often when someone taps Add to WhatsApp a second time because the first attempt gave no visible confirmation.
The pack imported but no stickers appear
- Force-close and reopen WhatsApp — the tray is populated at launch.
- Check you are looking at the right WhatsApp. Work profiles and multi-user Android devices each have separate installations, and a pack added under one is invisible to the other.
- Open My Stickers explicitly rather than relying on the recents row, which only shows stickers you have already sent.
Animated stickers show as a still image
This is the documented fallback rather than a failure: when playback is unavailable, WhatsApp shows the animation's first frame. It happens on out-of-date WhatsApp versions, on older devices, and when a battery or data saver is suppressing autoplay. Update WhatsApp first; if the still frame persists across devices, the file itself may have been exported as a static WebP.
Stickers look tinted, boxed, or have hard edges
A white or black box behind a sticker means the alpha channel was lost when the WebP was encoded. A green or purple tint points at the same problem handled differently by the encoder. Both are authoring faults in the pack and cannot be fixed on the receiving device — the publisher has to re-export with transparency preserved.
If a pack on a catalogue has this problem, report it through the catalogue's contact page rather than deleting and re-adding it; re-importing the same files reproduces the same result.
A pack will not install at all
Import fails outright when a pack breaks one of WhatsApp's hard rules — fewer than 3 or more than 30 stickers, a sticker that is not exactly 512 × 512, a static sticker over 100 KB, an animated one over 500 KB, a missing or oversized tray icon, or a pack that mixes static and animated stickers. There is no partial import: the pack either satisfies every rule or none of it arrives.
If you are building the pack, check it against the full specification. If you are installing someone else's, the pack is faulty and needs fixing at source.
Stickers disappeared after changing phones
Expected behaviour. Sticker packs are attached to the WhatsApp installation rather than to your account, so a chat backup restores your messages but not your packs. Reinstall the sticker app on the new device and add the packs again — there is no charge to re-add a pack you already had.
Stickers not moving, not sending or not downloading
- Not moving: update WhatsApp on both phones, then check that the pack really is animated — a pack is either all animated or all static, so a static pack never moves.
- Not sending: check the connection first; a sticker is sent like any other message and waits for a network. If one sticker fails while others send, remove and re-add its pack.
- Not downloading: a pack downloads when you confirm Add to WhatsApp in the sticker app. Free up storage, stay on Wi-Fi or mobile data until it finishes, and confirm the dialog again if it was dismissed.
- Not showing in the tray: the most recently added pack appears first; if it is missing, reinstall it from the app — a pack that was removed, or lost when changing phones, does not come back on its own.
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.
Sources
For developers
Building a sticker app or converting files yourself? Sticko's open reference covers the exact specs, with tested commands and a pack checker.