Before we start: If you have not any experience with Android Studio then please visit out another guide. That will teach you to make WhatsApp stickers without using AndroidStudio.
Yes, the WhatsApp sticker feature is definitely worth to use. There is no doubt WhatsApp is the ‘most used’ messaging application worldwide but some of the biggest competitors such as a Telegram using sticker feature from a long time. And it was necessary to bring them in WhatsApp. The stickers packs are quite limited to WhatsApp. But, you can download more from here. And if you don’t like, you can make one for yourself to use personally or to publish on Google PlayStore.
I just want to make all the things before we proceed further. So, you don’t get confused on any stage. Well… it is not going to be easy to make a sticker pack for Android. According to the WhatsApp official page, if a user is interested in creating sticker packs must be aware of the minimum app making the experience. Because the user has to package all stickers in one pack into the dedicated application to make it available on Google PlayStore. And this dedicated application can be made available on iOS AppStore as well for iOS-based devices.
Making a WhatsApp Sticker app is not that hard if you are thinking. If you follow steps carefully by understanding them, then it will make everything easy.
Let’s Get Started
WhatsApp has posted some app sample on his official GitHub repository. You can simply download source codes, change it, upload your images and simply publish it for your use.
Before you proceed, you will need to take a look at some FAQ of WhatsApp stickers. Well, I have mentioned some highlights, but if you want you can navigate to WhatsApp official page from here and read them.
FAQ for WhatsApp Stickers
- Stickers must be exactly 512 x 512 pixels
- A sticker is an image that has a transparent background
- Stickers are organized into “packs”. Your app can contain anywhere from 1 to 10 packs.
- Each sticker pack must have a minimum of 3 stickers and a maximum of 30 stickers
- Stickers must be in the WebP format.
- Each sticker must be less than 100KB.
- Sticker Picker/Tray Icon
- Provide an image that will be used to represent your sticker pack in the WhatsApp sticker picker/tray
- This image should be 96 x 96 pixels
- Max file size of 50KB
How to Create Sticker Pack for Android
- Download the Repository file from here.
- After downloading the repository file, open the entire folder for the sample app in Android Studio.
- Navigate to SampleStickerApp/app/src/main/assets in Android Studio.
- Inside the assets folder, folder 1 contains a number of sample sticker art files. Replace these with your own sticker files.
- Also, replace the sample tray icon PNG with your own tray icon.
- If you’d like to have more than 1 sticker pack in your app, simply create a folder named “2” or “3”, etc. within the assets folder and place your art and tray icon in there.
- Now, you also have to replace the ‘metadata’ in the contents.json file. The contents.json file is located in SampleStickerApp/app/src/main/assets.
You have to replace ‘metadata’ with your own. If you are not sure what it is, I have attached an image below from WhatsApp official website.
How to Change App Icon
Now, it’s time to change your application icon. The icons are contained in
SampleStickerApp /app /src /main / res in each of the folders beginning with mipmap (e.g. mipmap-xhdpi or mipmap-xxxhdpi).
For a simple way to create these icons, you can use Android Image Asset Studio which is built into Android Studio. You can navigate to this page in order to gain more information on how to run this tool. Further, to gain information on how to use this tool to create the icon of your app, read the notes here.
How to Change App Name
Now there you have added stickers and given an icon to your application, let’s change the name whichever suits for your stickers.
You can change your application through ‘strings.xml’ file. This file can be found in the following way.
SampleStickerApp / app / src / main / res / values / strings.xml
All Done! Now Build It
You need to build a release version of your app for submission to the Google Play Store. Click Build -> Generate Signed Bundle/APK. For more information, visit the Android Developer page here.
Note that Android Studio saves the APKs you build in project-name/module-name/build/outputs/apk. For more information on building your app, visit developers.android.com
Submit on Google Play Store
Alright, the tutorial ends here. I hope you have successfully built your sticker application. However, here’s a bonus for you. I have attached an official Play Store guideline link that will help you to know, how you can publish your application on Google Play Store.
Done!
Suggestion
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Hie, Can you make a video of this please. Thanks
Thank you Wasu for suggesting us. However, it is quite impossible for us because on our YouTube channel we only cover smartphone review videos. 🙁
Oh i see, but if you do that one Im sure it will be a hit, many people are looking for how to do it.
Yup, our team was discussing on the same topic. In the end, we discussed to published detailed information on the website. But, I will be definitely out your comment while we will discuss again. Thank you very much for showing such good response.
Thank you for the good “customer service” lol. Many dont bother to reply.
Lol, thanks! You are not my customer at all.
Did you make any Sticker app using the method above, if so please share the playstore link. Thanks
Thank you. I managed to create the Sticker App. Now im failing to include Admob ads in the app, can you please guide me on how to do it. Thanks
It’s is quite simple. You just only have to update your Android Manifest. For that, I suggest you follow up the Google’s AdMob guide.
Here’s a link: https://developers.google.com/admob/android/quick-start
I tried but its not working. In the tutorial there are updating MainActivity java file but in that code there is no MainActivity, so which files am i suppose to edit?
same question bro i also want to add admob ads
Because this is WhatsApp’s official source code and they haven’t added any AdMob support.
i can see all the whatsapp sticker having ads and all are making with admob account
Yup, I saw that. There is MainActivity file. And the reason is this is WhatsApp’s official source code. So, the developer has not added the AdMob support in this.
please make source code with admob
Yup, but it might be available when WhatsApp make it available. Because we prefer to use WhatsApp’s official source code to make sticker app. If there is any malicious in the third-party source code, your account might get banned.