Using Stickers on Your iPhone and How To Create Your Own

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at using Stickers on your iPhone.

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So Stickers are a way to visually respond to somebody usually in the Messages App. But you can use Stickers elsewhere. Let's start with the Messages App. Say you're in a conversation like this and you've received a reply from someone. You can respond visually to it in a few different ways. A simple way, that is not technically a sticker, is to tap and Hold on the message. Then at the top you're going to see six different symbols that you can use to respond. These are called Tap Back. So you can respond, say, with a thumbs up to a message and then you can see at the top of this message here there is a little thumbs up that the other person will see as well. 

But you can also use a Sticker to do something very similar with a much greater variety. If you tap the Plus button here at the bottom left then you can take a variety of different actions. For instance, you can take a photo with your camera and send that as a message or use an existing photo. Or attached things or perform functions from other apps that work in Messages. One of the things that is there by default though is Stickers. This allows you to respond visually to a message. So, we'll tap that and the most basic type of sticker that you can send is an emoji. So I've got that selected here and you could choose any emoji that you want. Now, if you just tap the emoji like this it is actually going to put that in a new message. That's not what we want to do here. So I'll tap the little X button there and get rid of that. Instead I want to put the sticker on this message here. 

So I'm going to tap and hold until kind of it pops up. You can see it popup right there.  Now I'm going to drag it and position it on the message where I want. So I could put it, say, right here. Now the position is important! because the other user will actually see it at that same position on the message in their Messages App. Now a note here about where this works and where this doesn't. It works if you're using Messages and Apple's proprietary iMessage System. In other words the Blue text bubbles. The other person also has to be using Messages and iMessage as well. They can be doing it on an iPhone, an iPad or even a Mac and the sticker will appear there for them. 

If you're using another system, like standard SMS or the green bubbles then they will get this sticker but as a separate message in the list. So it is not going to appear at that position over the message. It will just be the next message that they get. I will just be this image attachment. 

Now another way to attach a sticker to a message that's new in iOS 17.2 is to tap and hold and then one of the  options you have here at the bottom is Add Sticker. Then you can select a sticker, like say this one here, and it will put itself at the bottom right hand corner of the message. It's kind of a really quick way to respond with a sticker.

Now another type of sticker you can add is a Memoji or Animoji. So that is this button right here. You've got Memoji that you created or that Animoji which are the little animals that come with your iPhone. You can go through all the different poses and select a pose. Then you can use one of those things as a sticker. So, for instance, let's select this one here. I'll tap and hold and drag. Now I can position that on the message at a certain location as well. Like I said you don't have to use your own Memoji for this. You can use one of these little animals here. You can also use the Plus button here and then you can create a new Memoji to use, using all of the different settings here. 

Now you may also see some other stickers here as well. Third party apps will add stickers to this list. So by default you're going to have the Fitness App that comes with your iPhone and there are a bunch of different stickers that are actually part of the app. So the app doesn't have to be about stickers. It can be something completely unrelated like a shopping app. But one of its side functions could be to add some stickers. You can use the Edit button right here and Edit which are shown in the List and arrange their order as well. 

In addition to all of these you can also have stickers created from your own photos. That's this little button right there. Here you're going to see a variety of different stickers that you create yourself. You may not see any there right now. I've already created some. To make a new one the easiest way to do it is right here in the Messages App. Use the Plus button and then it will take you to a list of all your photos. You can use some of the categories here or you can search your photos and you can scroll through them and find something that you want to use that you think would make a nice sticker. So, for instance, let's use this flower right here. I'll select it and it's going to then use the Lift Subject functionality which tries to locate a subject in the photo and it is going to get rid of everything else. So there is no real way to make an entire photo a sticker. It is always going to try to grab a subject of the photo. So as long as you like what it selected you can decide, yes I want to make a sticker from it. Then Add Sticker and you can see it adds that to it. 

From that point you can rearrange, to rearrange of order of these, or you can Add An Effect. There are several different effects like, for instance, this puffy effect right here makes it kind of look like a puffy sticker. It will even change the shine on it depending upon you know how the person is holding their iPhone. So you can select that. I'll select it and hit Done. Now I've got this custom sticker that I can add just as easily as I add the others. So you can see I can add it right there. 

Now you may notice that some of these are animated. So you can create animated ones using the same technique but you have to do that using a live photo. So you'll see the live photos here because they are animated in this list. So here's one of this fire, for instance. You tap that and it will try to isolate the subject in this photo. So it may take a few seconds to do that. There we go. As long as you like it you can say Add Sticker and now you've got this animated one right here. So now when you drag this one you can see it will actually animate right here on the message. 

If you ever want to Delete one of these from the list you can tap and hold anyone that you want and then use Delete and it will remove it there. Also note that in the Messages App you can tap and hold a message, like this one, and then you can go to Sticker Details. That's going to give you a list of all the stickers here. So, one of the things you can do with these is remove a sticker. Now this won't remove it for the other person. You can't pull it back from their app, but at least it will get it out of the way if you don't want to see it on yours. The same thing as if somebody else has put a sticker on a message and you want to get it out of the way. You can use this to remove it. You also can Save stickers. So if you, say, you've gotten one from somebody else you can use the Save button here to Save it. 

So here, for instance, somebody else has send me a message having a little conversation and then they add the sticker, not me. So now I can go here to this message. Tap and Hold and then I can go to Sticker Details, see that sticker and I can save it. Now I've got that sticker in my collection as well. 

You can use Stickers in some other places on your iPhone as well. The trick is to look for Markup. As long as you have access to Markup Tools, you should be able to use a sticker. So here I am in the Photos App. I can Edit the photo like that. Then once I'm editing I have Markup Tools right here. I can go into Markup Tools and then there is a Plus button. One of the options under that is Add Sticker. Now I can add a sticker from here the same way. Just Tap and Hold till it pops up and then I can add that sticker onto that photo. So you can see it is going to appear there. Then I can move it around.as part of the Markup Tool just like I were to create a box or a line or something else. 

Here I am in the Mail App. I'm going to attach a photo to this message. So I'll just select this one right here. Once I have it in the message I can tap it and I get the menu. One of the options in the menu is to, of course, use Markup Tools. Once I'm in Markup Tools I can use the Plus button and I can add a sticker. So, in this case instead of one of my custom ones I'll go over here to these and I'll choose one of my Memoji characters and I will add this sticker right here and position it, even resize it into this photo and that is just something that's going to appear in this photo here as I'm sending it. It's not going to change the original photo. These stickers will sync over iCloud. So if you create one on your iPhone you'll be able to see it on your iPad. 

Another place you can use these is on your Mac. You can certainly use Emoji's and Memojis as stickers for your own custom ones. You can't create them there. You have to create them on an iPhone or iPad. But once you have them there iCloud will sync them and you can actually use your own custom photos, even the live ones, as stickers on the Mac in the Messages App. But it is not available in the Markup Tools on the Mac, at least not yet. 

One of the places you can't usually use stickers is in other messaging apps. You can probably markup an image if the Markup Tools are allowed but other than that they would have to have their own sticker functionality in there, probably with completely different stickers and different options. A third party messaging system really isn't going to support this. They have to have their own. 

So stickers are a great way to give some quick visual feedback to someone that's a little more fun than just a few words. They also can be a great way to markup images in other situations as well. I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.