Using Memoji Stickers And a Hidden Trick To Make Your Own

iOS 13 and iPadOS give us a new Messages app feature where we can send stickers based on our Memoji or Apple's Animoji characters. Old functionality lets you send a recording with animation and audio. But you can also send your own custom Memoji or Animoji stickers if you know a little hidden trick.
You can also watch this video at YouTube.
Watch more videos about related subjects: iPhone (333 videos), Messages (23 videos).

Video Transcript

Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. In this episode I'm going to show you how to use Memoji Stickers including a way few people know about to send your own custom memoji stickers.
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If you want to tell somebody how you feel you could tell them face-to-face or call them on the phone. But we all know the best way to do that is through a text message. For a long time we've been able to use emoji to convey emotions in our messages. So we can attach a little character to let people know if we're happy, sad, angry, surprised, or whatever. But with the new feature in iOS 13 called Memoji Stickers you can take the memoji, the little characters you create that kind of look like you, and you could have these little emotions conveyed using these characters. 
There are predefined set of twenty-four that you can use with either the memoji that you've created or one of the existing animoji characters that Apple has had around for awhile. But using a little hidden trick you could also create your own memoji or animoji stickers as well.
So there are all sorts of different things that you could say in a message using the Messages app in iOS 13 on your iPhone or iPadOS on your iPad. For instance you can tap on the Emoji button on the keyboard and then you can add one of the standard emoji. People do this all the time. But you can also send unique things using memoji and animoji. Memoji is little characters that you can build to look like yourself and animoji are the built in ones that Apple has included. So let's look at using those.
Tap the App button to the left of the message field if you don't already see the list of apps there below the message field. Now there are two that deal with memoji and animoji.  The first one we're going to look at is the sticker's functionality. That's the third one over here on my screen. You can arrange yours in anyway you want by editing the apps that you use. I'm going to tap that and at the top I'm going to see a list, first, of the memoji that I've created and then of the animoji. These are the ones that Apple includes. You know a little alien there, and the panda, and all the different things. These have been around for a little while now.
Then with the memoji you can tap the three dots there and edit the ones that you've got or create a new one if you want. So you can add a bunch of memojis there. Whichever one is selected it's going to generate 24 different stickers below. These are basically a little emoji generated using your memoji or the selected animoji there. If you want to insert one in a text message just select it and then it puts it into the message as an image. This is important because as an image it means it can go to basically anybody on any phone. You can have an android phone and they don't have an emoji or animoji functionality. But since this is just a regular image they get to see it anyway. Then you can Send it to them.
So you can switch to using different ones. You can create memojis that maybe are specifically for this of characters or anything that you want. You can also go and use all of the weird animoji that Apple has. So you have tons of options that are different than just including a standard emoji character.
But what if you don't want to use one of the 24 stickers. It would be nice to be able to create your own. Like a surprised look or a puzzled look, or a sly look. So you'd think you would be able to do that here. You can't do it here but you can do it somewhere else. For that let's go over the older animoji app. It's got the little animoji of a monkey there as its symbol. This is primarily used for making little video clips with your memoji or animoji. So you can pick what character you want, you know use one of Apple's, use your own memoji, and then record. 
You can record a short little clip. It's going to take the audio from you and it's going to take the expression from your face and then create a little video clip with your memoji. That sounds great. Now I can send that and it's going to create this little looping animation of me saying that over and over again. But what if I just want to do a sticker. I don't want to actually have a video of that. I want something that's just an image like those stickers that we were looking at before. You can do that as well. You can do that right here. It's really easy. But you have to know the trick.
What you need to do is make your expression and once you've got it perfect double tap on the image. Watch. So I made the expression. I double tapped right on my face there on the screen and it took an image from that. Now I can send that as a sticker. So not only do your have the 24 stickers that you could use with your memoji. You can create more memoji if you want. Use Apple's animoji. But you can also go into the animoji app here and create any expression you want and double tap to create a sticker.
So now you basically have an infinite number of options of different custom stickers that you can create using memoji or animoji. 

Comments: 14 Comments

    Sherry
    6 years ago

    Gary, How do I get the 3rd app over that you have? My phone doesn't have this.

    Mark Luffman
    6 years ago

    Thanks, Gary. I'm not sure what versions of the iPhone have the Animoji feature to make your own expression video or image. My iPhone 6s+ does not have this but my wife's iPhone X does. Maybe you have a list of which phones can do this? Thanks for always giving another tip that we say, "Wow, I didn't know about that cool capability or feature!"

    6 years ago

    Sherry + Mark: See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209183 for a list of supported iPhones.

    Fran
    6 years ago

    I don't see the three dots. How can I add to this list a custom emoji I made online and saved as a photo?

    6 years ago

    Fran: Not sure what you mean by "made online" -- made online where? If you used a site to create graphic characters as photos, then those are just images and not something you use with this feature.

    jpf55
    6 years ago

    It works great Gary, thank you

    Rocky
    6 years ago

    Cool! Great info (again). Thanks Gary.

    Dana Stevens
    6 years ago

    If the word at 47 seconds is what it sounds like to me I am disappointed. It makes the video much less professional and not what I expect from MacMost. I think it detracts from the content. If I'm hearing the word incorrectly, I apologize. The word appears to be left out of the video transcript so I couldn't confirm it.

    6 years ago

    Dana: Sorry my use of that word offended you. Just trying to add some humor into it. It is a funny word. And it's certainly something that you would hear on network television. Plus, my audience is all adults. I didn't consider that someone would be offended. My apologies to you. I'll try to be more cautious with my attempts at humor in the future.

    John Clark
    6 years ago

    Gary use of the word was perfectly acceptable within the context of the tutorial. Any kid old enough to have an iOS device better mature enough to be exposed to the word or the parent is not doing a very good job of deciding when to give the iOS device to the child.

    Lorena
    6 years ago

    Gary I have the update but my Memoji is not appearing anywhere I see my friends having fun with it and I wanna join them to..but I can’t becaude I can’t find it anywhere! Can you please help and suggest something. Thanks

    6 years ago

    Lorena: Which version of macOS or iOS do you have then?

    Bonnie
    6 years ago

    I do not have the App Store Icon in messenger....

    6 years ago

    Bonnie: It should be there. Did you scroll over to the right to see all of the items?

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