We all know that the key to true Wechat superiority in your over-abundance of Wechat groups is your ability to whip out the best “reaction” sticker for any particular situation… check and mate, right?
When we all first start using Wechat, we discover those cute little cartoon ones that you can download to your phone for free. Simple enough.
The true status symbols, though, are the custom ones you get from friends featuring your favorite movie or TV show that no one in your friends’ circle has seen on Wechat before…
Android users have been able to do this easily for years, but there are still some iPhone and Windows** peeps who haven’t gotten the hang of it yet… wait, does anyone still even have a Windows phone?
Another problem: do you have too many Wechat stickers!? We also have a solution for that!
**Note: this method should work for any type of phone
1. Find a GIF
There are countless GIF websites out there to browse on your computer and find your perfect little mic-dropping animation, but here are the best five:
giphy.com
gifsoup.com
forgifs.com
gifbin.com
gifgifgifgifgif.com
And of course, all the various sites on:
tumblr.com
Another good way to find a quality GIF is to type in “emotion + GIF” or “favorite movie + GIF” into the ol’ search engine.
So yeah, find a GIF and save it to your desktop. Probably make a folder called “GIFs” cuz you’re gonna find a lot of awesome ones!
Remember to make sure the filesize and length aren’t too big or too long and that if there are words in the GIF, consider how they’ll show up on a small phone screen…
2. Open Wechat’s Web Interface
This info might change the way you use Wechat drastically… if you didn’t know, Wechat has a desktop app and a basic web interface so you can chat and interact with your friends by typing on your computer!
This is also the method for adding other numerous filetypes to be shared within Wechat.
Go here in your computer’s browser:
web.wechat.com
Inside your Wechat app on your phone, scan the unique QR code that it comes up with and then select “Log In”…
The convenient chat website should then automatically load.
To be honest, it’s not the most comprehensive interface and not even close to having the features that QQ has, but it works for what we need it to!
3. Use “File Transfer” to upload your GIF
On the left hand side of the Web Wechat’s window, you’ll see a list of your groups and recent chats… (You will not be able to see the chat history, though.)
Scroll down until you find the new chat labeled “File Transfer”
Select the folder icon in the chat and upload your GIF~
If the filesize is too large, consider using a GIF Resizer website to optimize the file and reduce the size. But be warned, this would also reduce the quality.
Finally, open the File Transfer chat on your phone and see how your new sticker looks!
4. Add to Stickers
If the GIF is everything you dreamed of and more, hold it down with a long press and select “Add to Stickers“… Voila! A new custom sticker to use in any chat or chat group you please. 😎
Some of us might have so many stickers saved already that you might get this dreaded message:
Nooooooooooooo!
‘Guess you could go to “Manage Stickers” and delete some, but being the sticker hoarders that we know you are, that’s probably not an option…
Solution: Start a Wechat group just for your stickers!
Create a new group with a few of your closest friends, title it something clever like “Sticker Madness,” and instead of adding your newly created GIF to your custom sticker list, hold it down with a long press and “Forward” it to your new personal unlimited sticker repository group chat!
We’d add you to our group, but you wouldn’t be able to see our five thousand years of sticker history, so that’s kinda pointless…
We also recommend writing a text post describing the sticker right below it in the group, so you can easily find it through searching the chat group’s history.
Trust us, once you have upwards of 1000 stickers, you won’t want to scroll through them all to find the right one…
(These files take up space in your phone – if you have a small hard drive, you’re gonna have a bad time~)
Bonus: How to make your own videos into Stickers
For this step, you’ll need a separate app…
A good one that we’ve found is called Video to GIF which has a built-in “Share to Wechat” function.