MP4 to WEBM: how to convert a video into a Telegram video sticker

Updated October 22, 2026 · 6 min read

A Telegram video sticker is a WEBM file — but not just any WEBM. The official @Stickers bot rejects a file that is a few pixels too big, a fraction of a second too long or a few kilobytes over the limit, and that is exactly what a regular MP4-to-WEBM converter produces. Here is what Telegram checks, how to convert a video in one step, and an ffmpeg command we tested on 13 different clips.

What Telegram checks in a video sticker

A video emoji follows the same rules, but its frame is exactly 100×100 px. Telegram also recommends looping the clip, so that the sticker repeats without a jump.

Why a regular MP4 to WEBM converter isn't enough

An ordinary converter changes the format and keeps everything else from the original video. The result fails one of the checks above:

• Wrong size. A phone video is 1080×1920 or even 4K, and a sticker needs exactly 512 px on the longer side.
• Sound. The audio track is copied into the WEBM, and a sticker must be silent.
• VP8 instead of VP9. Many apps still export WEBM with VP8 by default — Telegram warns about this in its own guide.
• Too long. The whole video is converted, while a sticker lasts 3 seconds at most.
• Too heavy. At full resolution, three seconds of video easily take a megabyte or more — four times the 256 KB limit.
• 60 fps. Phones often record at 60 frames per second, and a sticker allows 30.

Convert an MP4 to a sticker in one step

vidsticker does all of this for you: it takes the 3 seconds you choose, scales them to 512 px, drops the sound and picks the quality and frame rate so the file fits under 256 KB while staying as sharp as the limit allows. Then it checks the finished file against Telegram's requirements. It works with MP4, MOV, GIF, WEBM and other videos.

1. Open vidsticker.com and drop your MP4 into the window — or send the video to @vidsticker_bot in Telegram.
2. On the website, drag the window on the frame strip to choose up to 3 seconds. In the bot, add a caption such as “from 0:05”.
3. Press Make sticker. Download the finished .webm, or log in and add the sticker to your pack with a button. The bot adds it to your pack right away.

You can also remove the background, change the shape, add text or a boomerang effect before making the sticker — more in how to make video stickers.

Convert MP4 to WEBM with ffmpeg

If you prefer to do it yourself, the free ffmpeg (version 4.3 or newer) makes a valid sticker. Run two commands in the folder with your video: the first pass studies the clip, the second writes the file.

ffmpeg -y -ss 0 -t 3 -i input.mp4 -an -vf "scale=512:512:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease:force_divisible_by=2,fps=30" -c:v libvpx-vp9 -b:v 500k -pass 1 -f null /dev/null
ffmpeg -y -ss 0 -t 3 -i input.mp4 -an -vf "scale=512:512:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease:force_divisible_by=2,fps=30" -c:v libvpx-vp9 -b:v 500k -pass 2 sticker.webm

On Windows, write NUL instead of /dev/null. What each part does:

• -ss 0 -t 3 — start at second 0 and take 3 seconds; for a clip from 0:12, write -ss 12;
• -an — drop the sound;
• scale=512:512:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease — the longer side becomes exactly 512 px and the proportions stay; force_divisible_by=2 keeps the other side even;
• fps=30 — 30 frames per second;
• -c:v libvpx-vp9 -b:v 500k — VP9 at 500 kbit/s: three seconds come to about 190 KB, with room to spare under 256 KB.

Why two passes. We ran this command on 13 clips — vertical phone videos, 4K, old cartoons and GIFs. With two passes every file came out between 43 and 187 KB. A single pass at the same bitrate went up to 248 KB on a 4K video of a dog, a hair under the limit. If your file still ends up over 256 KB, lower -b:v to 400k.

A transparent source — a GIF or a WEBM with an alpha channel — keeps its transparency if you add -pix_fmt yuva420p before the output in both commands. For a WEBM source, also put -c:v libvpx-vp9 before -i: ffmpeg's built-in decoder ignores the alpha channel.

Then add the sticker to Telegram

1. Open @Stickers — Telegram's official bot — and send /newvideo for a new pack of video stickers, or /addsticker to add to a pack you already have.
2. Name the pack, send sticker.webm as a file and choose an emoji for it.
3. Send /publish and choose a short name: it becomes the pack link, t.me/addstickers/name.

With vidsticker you can skip this step: the bot and the website put stickers into your own pack and give you its link — see how to create a sticker pack.

Can a video become a TGS animated sticker?

No — and you don't need it to. TGS stickers are vector animations (Lottie) drawn in a vector editor or After Effects: they are made of shapes, not pixels, so there is no honest way to turn a video into one. Telegram's format for stickers made from video is WEBM, and in a chat a video sticker plays just like an animated one.

Already have a WEBM?

Check it against the table above. A WEBM from a screen recorder, a browser or another app often has sound, VP8, the wrong size or more than 256 KB. The easiest fix is to upload it to vidsticker: it is re-encoded to fit, and you can pick the moment, trim it and add effects at the same time.

Questions and answers