Telegram Sticker Maker: Video to WebM VP9, Free

What Telegram's own pages say (read 15 October 2026)

Telegram's sticker page says a video sticker or video emoji is a .WEBM file encoded with the VP9 codec, that it requires Telegram 8.5 or higher, and that it must not last longer than 3 seconds, can run at up to 30 frames a second, must have no audio stream and should not exceed 256 KB. For a sticker, one side must be exactly 512 pixels and the other 512 pixels or less; for an emoji the video must be exactly 100 x 100 pixels. It says the video should loop. Telegram's separate encoding page adds advice: use a constant 30 frames a second, check that VP9 and not VP8 is selected, use a constant-quality setting at a low or the lowest setting with two-pass encoding, and switch to a variable bitrate if constant quality is still not small enough. Static stickers and emoji can instead be a PNG or WebP picture with the same pixel sizes; the sticker page gives no byte limit for them. The pages do not say whether a kilobyte is 1,000 or 1,024 bytes, so this tool aims for 256,000 bytes, which fits either reading, and reports the check against 262,144 bytes (256 x 1,024).

What the tool does with your file

You choose a sticker or a custom emoji, whether to keep the whole picture or cut a centred square, a start time and a length of up to 3 seconds, and a frame rate. For a video or a GIF you pick the segment; a still picture becomes a still clip of the length you set. The tool scales the picture so the longer side is exactly 512 pixels for a sticker (the other side is kept to an even number), or fits it into 100 x 100 for an emoji, drops any sound, and writes a WebM with VP9 video. After encoding it reads the file back with the same engine and lists its file type, codec, picture size, length, frame rate, sound and byte count against Telegram's figures, each marked Pass or Fail. For a video or a GIF it also offers a play-forwards-then-backwards option: the segment is cut to half the length and followed by itself in reverse, so the last frame is the first frame again and the clip does not jump when it repeats.

How it tries to get under the size limit, and how this differs from Telegram's advice

The video engine that runs in the browser is FFmpeg compiled for the web (ffmpeg.wasm 0.12.10, one thread). In our testing its VP9 encoder stopped with a memory error when it coded a frame predicted from an earlier frame, on any picture with real detail. The tool therefore stores every frame on its own, with no look-ahead. The result is a genuine VP9 WebM, but a file made this way is larger than one that can use frame-to-frame prediction, and the tool uses a single pass instead of the two passes Telegram suggests. To compensate, it encodes at a constant quality and searches: it starts at a middle quality, lowers the quality if the file is over 256,000 bytes, raises it if there is plenty of room, and makes at most 5 tries. If the quality is already very low and the file is still too big, and you leave the option on, it lowers the frame rate. If nothing fits within those tries, it keeps the smallest file it made, and the file size line shows Fail when that file is over 262,144 bytes. In our simple test clips (a short colour clip, a picture with a transparent background) the result met every rule. In our worst-case stress test, a 3-second clip of full-frame random noise, the tool took about 755 seconds (over 12 minutes) on the test computer and still failed the size limit, which the page showed as Fail. A long, busy, full-frame clip may do the same, and a shorter segment or a lower frame rate may help.

Transparency

Stickers look best without a background. A PNG or a GIF that has transparent pixels keeps them in our tests: the tool writes the video with an alpha channel (pixel format yuva420p) and turns off the alternate-reference-frame setting that this needs, then checks the finished file for the alpha flag and tells you whether the transparency was kept. WebP files are handled the same way in the code but were not part of our tests. Transparency is looked for on the first frame of a picture or GIF, so a GIF that is transparent only in later frames comes out solid. It is not read from a video file such as an MP4 or MOV, so a video with an alpha channel comes out solid. You can also choose to fill transparent areas, and the empty space around an emoji, with white or black. A file with an alpha channel can come out bigger than the same clip without one. The preview of the result is shown on a checkerboard so you can see any transparency.

Getting the file into Telegram

This tool cannot add a sticker to Telegram. To use the file you create the sticker set in Telegram itself, where Telegram's sticker page names the @Stickers mini app and the @Stickers bot, and upload the WebM there. Telegram then decides whether it accepts the file, and its rules can change. Telegram's page also says that anyone can create custom emoji, but adding and using custom emoji sets is currently a Telegram Premium feature. This tool only prepares the file. To cut a longer clip first, you can use the video trimmer; for a GIF, the video to GIF maker makes a GIF from a video and the GIF to video converter turns one into an MP4 or WebM.

What it does not do

It does not remove a background from a photo, so a cut-out look needs a PNG or GIF that already has one. It does not make animated TGS stickers, which are a different vector format, and it does not make the static PNG or WebP stickers that Telegram also accepts. It does not read transparency from a video file, and does not add text, outlines or shadows. Animated WebP files were not tested and may not work. It cannot test that a clip loops, only play it for you on repeat. It cannot promise that Telegram or the @Stickers bot will accept the file. The video engine, about 31 MB, is downloaded once and kept on your device. Encoding is slow, because your own device does the work: a long, detailed clip can take many minutes to try several qualities, and may still end over the size limit.

Sources and checks

• Telegram: Stickers and emoji: Video sticker and emoji requirements: WebM, VP9, 3 seconds, 30 frames a second, 256 KB, no audio, 512 pixel side or 100 x 100 for emoji, the PNG or WebP sizes for static stickers, and the note that custom emoji sets are a Premium feature.
• Telegram: Encoding a WebM VP9 video: Encoding advice: check VP9 is selected, remove audio, constant 30 frames a second, constant quality with two-pass encoding, variable bitrate if that is not enough. It does not say whether a kilobyte is 1,000 or 1,024 bytes.