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Create stickers in Motion for the Messages app on iOS and iPadOS devices
If you’re a developer, you can create animated stickers for the Messages app on iOS and iPadOS devices. To simplify the process, you can use one of the premade sticker templates available in the Project Browser (or you can create a project from scratch).
Open Motion, then choose File > New from Project Browser (or press Option-Command-N).
In the Project Browser, click Stickers in the Compositions section in the sidebar.
Click a composition in the middle of the browser to see its basic properties and an animated preview on the right.
The three available sticker sizes are those supported by the Messages app:
Small: 300 x 300 pixels
Medium: 408 x 408 pixels
Large: 618 x 618 pixels
Note: Although you can change the duration of the project once it’s created, a two-second duration or less is required for all sticker compositions.
To create a sticker project from the selected composition, click Open a Copy.
Modify your sticker project like any other Motion project by adding shapes, behaviors, filters, and so on.
Important: Your final render must be less than 500 KB. For best results, keep your project simple using line drawings and text. Additionally, avoid using filters that create animated change over time, such as the Noise filter (all of that information must be compressed for each frame, increasing the size of your project).
When you’re ready to render your project, choose Share > Export Image Sequence, choose PNG from the Export pop-up menu (in the Settings pane of the Export Image Sequence window), select the Create Sticker Sequence checkbox, then click Next.
Enter a name and choose a save location for the exported file, then click Save.
For more information, go to developer.apple.com/support/stickers/motion/ or developer.apple.com/documentation/messages.
Download this guide: PDF