How to Create and Delete Stickers on Your iPhone

Emojis and GIFs are great for reacting and conveying emotion, but new emoji offerings are coming slowly and there are only a limited number of them. GIFs offer many more options, but you can’t always find the right one to capture exactly how you feel. If you’re looking for something a lot more personalized for yourself and your groups of friends, you need to check out stickers on your iPhone.

Stickers are a much more personal and super fun option to use in the Messages app (and elsewhere) on your iPhone. If you haven’t tried these custom “stickable” images yet, you’re missing out. Any photo or video of you or your friends can become a hilarious reaction image. And they’re easy to set up, without any photo editing skills.

You can easily create stickers using your own photos, including animated stickers from Live Photos. A perfectly timed sticker can be fun in a group chat, great for inside jokes, or for inventing new memes between friends. Once you create a sticker, it stays saved in your library for quick reuse later. And managing your stickers is easy too; you are free to delete those you are not satisfied with or no longer use. Chances are, when you start using stickers, your friends will too, which means more fun chats for everyone.

There are two possible routes when you want to create a new sticker: through the Photos app or in the Messages app. For the first, open Photos and find an image you want to create a sticker from. The best candidates for stickers are images that have a clear subject in the foreground, such as a person, animal, hand, or object.

After tapping to view the image you want to create from, tap and hold on the item you want to turn into a sticker. You’ll see it glow for a moment, then a tooltip menu will appear next to it. If that doesn’t happen, try something else that’s more pronounced in the background (or in another photo). Choose Add a sticker to save the sticker to your library. Repeat this to create as many stickers as you want. You can sometimes even create multiple stickers from the same image. And if you select a Live Photo, your sticker will be animated (turn off the option Live option at the top left to disable this option if you prefer it to remain static).

If you prefer, it is also possible to create stickers from the same menu you access them from. Open a conversation in the Messages app, select the + (More) to the left of the area where you type, then choose Stickers. There, hit him + (More) icon in your sticker list. This opens your photo collection with one key difference from the previous one: items that can be converted to stickers appear highlighted without you having to tap on them. Press one, followed by + (More) at the bottom, to add it to your library.

The Messages app is the best place to use stickers. Open the same + (More) menu mentioned above to see all the ones you have created so far. To manage them, long-press one, then select Rearrange from the tooltip. This puts the stickers in a “jiggle mode” similar to that used when customizing the iPhone home screen, allowing you to drag them or tap the button. – (Less) button to delete them in bulk. From the same tooltip menu, select Add an effect to brighten up your stickers a little. You can choose from a few options like Outline And Bright; some of them even react when you turn your iPhone, looking like a holographic trading card.

To send a sticker, tap it from your library. This adds it to your draft message, just like when you attach a photo. For added fun, tap and hold a sticker from your library to “peel” it, then drag it onto the conversation to “stick” it. Try this for a fun way to edit text and images: have your pet photobomb your beautiful landscape photos, use your friend’s goofy face as a reaction, and whatever else you can think of.

Keep in mind that stickers are designed to work in iMessage conversations (the ones with blue bubbles). They should send RCS chats with Android users, but probably won’t display the “peel and paste” option correctly. SMS conversations have strict size limits, which means stickers may appear blurry.

Messages isn’t the only app that works with your stickers. They can be used in other messaging applications like WhatsApp; just press the Emoji at the bottom left of your keyboard and choose the Stickers tongue. However, you can’t “paste” them onto messages like in iMessage. Stickers are also available in any iPhone app that has Annotation mode. For example, try opening an image in the Photos application, by pressing the icon To modify (cursors) at the bottom, then selecting the icon Markup (marker) at the top.

Once you are in Annotation mode, tap + (More) in the bottom toolbar and choose Add a sticker. You can move the stickers, change their size and make copies. Be sure to save the edited image once you’re done. Other apps where markup is available include Mail and Notes. If you’re not feeling inspired, many iPhone apps offer their own sticker packs. Inside the Stickers In the menu, you will see icons for emoji (any emoji can serve as a sticker), Custom Genmoji, Memoji, and compatible installed apps. On my phone, for example, the American Airlines, Wikipedia, and Taco Bell apps offer their own stickers. Choose To modify on the far right to rearrange your sticker packs, following Get sticker apps from the App Store at the bottom if you want to know more.

Your created stickers sync across all devices using your Apple account, so try them on your iPad and Mac too! This is a great way to make your reactions more personal. There’s no wrong way to use them, so create a group and try them out.