How to make a Telegram sticker from a photo

Updated October 14, 2026 · 4 min read

A funny photo of a friend, a cat in an awkward pose or your own selfie — any photo can become a Telegram sticker. Send it to @vidsticker_bot or upload it on the website: a neural network removes the background if you want, the sticker is fitted to Telegram's rules and added to your pack. Free, no apps to install.

What you get

• A regular (static) sticker — a 512 px image, like most Telegram stickers. It goes into the same pack as your video stickers: Telegram lets you mix them in one pack.
• No background — the neural network keeps the person, pet or object on a transparent background; drawings and anime have their own model. A selfie gives you stickers of yourself.
• Shape and text — circle, square, rounded corners and a caption on top: fonts, color, top or bottom. Sticker with text
• An emoji from a photo — the same photo as a 100×100 emoji in your emoji pack. Emoji from a photo

A sticker from a photo on the website

1. Open vidsticker.com — on a phone or computer — and tap “Drop a video, GIF or photo here”. JPG, PNG (transparent too) and WEBP work.
2. To remove the background, open the Background tab and choose “People, animals and objects” or “Drawings and anime”.
3. On the Frame tab pick a shape — for example, Circle — and use Crop to keep the part of the photo you want.
4. Add a caption on the Text tab if you like.
5. Tap “Make sticker”. Download it with “Download .webp” or — if you logged in with Telegram — add it to your pack.

A sticker from a photo with the bot

1. Open @vidsticker_bot and tap Start.
2. Send the photo as usual — with the paperclip 📎 from your gallery. You can add wishes in the caption: “no bg”, “circle”, “cat” (for animals), “anime” (for drawings) or an emoji for the sticker.
3. The bot sends the sticker and adds it to your pack. Under it there are buttons: background removal, “◻️ Shape” and “😀 Emoji”; each tap rebuilds the sticker and replaces it in your pack.
4. The first sticker creates the pack: open the link in the bot's message and tap “Add Stickers”.

Send an uncompressed image — like a PNG with a transparent background — as a file: paperclip → File. That keeps both the transparency and the quality.

How the background is removed

The same neural network as for videos finds the main subject — a person, a pet, an object — and makes everything else transparent, even hair and fur at the edges. It works best when the subject is large and stands out from the background. For cartoons, anime and drawings choose “Drawings and anime”. More in how to remove a background for a sticker.

Photos from an iPhone and Android

• iPhone. Send photos to the bot as usual — Telegram turns them into JPEG. On the website the browser also gives a JPEG and shrinks large shots before uploading. A HEIC photo sent as a file can't be read yet — send it as a regular photo.
• Live Photo. Want the sticker to move? Send the Live Photo to the bot with Live on — Live Photo sticker.
• Android. Photos from your gallery — to the bot or the website; Telegram sends motion photos like Live Photos.

Want the sticker to move?

A photo makes a static sticker. A moving one comes from a video, GIF, round video or Live Photo — see how to make an animated sticker.

Questions and answers