Create WhatsApp Stickers Android Application

What’s trending on PlayStore nowadays? PUBG, TikTok, Subway Surfers, Temple Run, Facebook, Instagram? I think it’s WhatsApp stickers. Yes, we are noticing lots of applications on playstore related to gbwhatsapp stickers. Nowadays especially in India stickers of election, modi, rahul, bjp, congress are in trend.

Apart from trending stickers there are many applications of stickers which are about shayari, quotes, actor/actress, famous personalities etc. So what actually these stickers are? It is nothing but just a small image which is used to communicate with other users, it is another form of smiley/emoji to share in your messages or to express your feelings.

Here are some sample stickers :

After looking at it you might be thinking people are genius and they are so much creative and have so many new stickers with them. Yes, they are creative and if you think you are creative then you can also create your own WhatsApp stickers application in an hour. Surprised?? Yes, it is true, after reading this article you will also be able to create WhatsApp stickers android application on your own.

So let’s just start with the steps you need to follow to create WhatsApp stickers application.

Step 1: Download WhatsApp Sticker repo and open it in android studio. Once you compile and run that code you will be able to see example stickers used in this application and output will be like following :

Step 2: Navigate to /app/src/main/assets in Android Studio, there you will find folder named “1, open it and you will see stickers in .webp format. Replace those .webp files with your own sticker files. Also, replace system tray icon which is in .png format.

If you have more than one sticker packs you can create more folder in assets folder with name “2”, “3” etc or any alphanumeric unique names.

Step 3: Once you replace all the stickers in assets folder, you need to map those stickers in contents.json file which is available in assets folder itself. Let’s see some important part of contents.json file.

name: It will be name of your sticker pack. The maximum limit for this is 128 characters.
identifier: It is a unique name to each sticker pack. Identifier name can be alpha numeric and can use a few special characters also like “_”, “-“, “.” and ” “. The maximum limit for this is 128 characters. An identifier must be the same name as your folder name inside assets we have created in Step 2.
publisher: Name of the publisher of the pack (128 characters max).
tray_image_file: Replace this name with your system tray icon file name.
stickers: It is an array of all the stickers available in that pack. Mention all stickers name here with key image_file.
android_play_store_link and ios_app_store_link : These are optional values. If you provide these URLs, users who receive a sticker from your app in WhatsApp can tap on it to view your sticker app in the respective App Stores. For Android, URL will be https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.example, here com.example will be the package name of your application.
emojis: You can add up to 3 emojis per sticker file. Select emoji that best describe or represent that sticker file. According to WhatsApp document, In future WhatsApp will add a search function for stickers and tagging that emoji will be useful to search a suitable sticker. The sticker picker/tray in WhatsApp today already categorizes stickers into emotion categories (love, happy, sad, and angry) and it does this based on the emoji you tag your stickers with.

Apart from the above parameters, there are few more which are optional: publisher_website, privacy_policy_website, license_agreement_website, publisher_email.

Now you are done with WhatsApp sticker application. But before uploading it to playstore you need to do necessary changes.

Change app icon: You need to change the application icon(launcher icon) which will be displayed on the home screen of the user’s device. You can find those icons in /app/src/main/res in each of the folders beginning with mipmap (e.g. mipmap-xhdpi or mipmap-xxxhdpi). For a simple way to create these icons, you can use Android Image Asset Studio.
Change applicationId in build.gradle(app/build.gradle) file. applicationId must be unique on playstore. Check it over playstore whether it is available or not. Check more about how to set application id.
Change application name in string.xml(app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml). This is the name users will see for your app on their phone.

Here you are, done with your own first WhatsApp Stickers application. You can run it and check it with simulator or real device. To launch your application on playstore, follow instructions from the official website.

Note: Importantly, when naming your app, it is strongly advised you do not use “WhatsApp” anywhere in the name of your app or in the name field of your app listing on the Google Play Store.

Following are few stickers application which you need to look at

Let’s share your WhatsApp sticker application here in the comment area, so other people can also know about it 🙂

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Ravi Rupareliya

He is author of Android Gig. He loves to explore new technologies and have worked on Android, React Native, Action on Google and Flutter.

Create WhatsApp Stickers Android Application

Ravi Rupareliya

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