WhatsApp has started rolling out animated stickers for Android and iOS users. Animated sticker packs are now showing up alongside the regular sticker packs in the in-app Sticker Store. There is a play button next to these animated sticker packs, differentiating them from the regular ones. In both the WhatsApp for Android and WhatsAppp for iOS apps, newly introduced animated sticker packs include Rico’s Sweet Life, Playful Piyomaru, Bright Days, Moody Foodies, and Chummy Chum Chums. The animated stickers support is rolling out for WhatsApp for Desktop app as well.
The instant messaging app took to Twitter to announce the rollout for animated stickers. To see these new sticker packs and use them on WhatsApp, ensure that your app is updated to the latest version. This feature is working on WhatsApp for Android v2.20194.16 & WhatsApp for iOS v2.20.70. Once updated, open a chat and head to the Stickers section by clicking on the emoji icon at the bottom of the chat.
Follow these steps to add animated stickers to your WhatsApp chat.
- Open desired WhatsApp chat, click on the emoji iconin the bottom bar.
- Select the Stickersoption from the found at the end of the screen, and click on the ‘+’ icon seen on the extreme right of the stickers section.
- This will open the built in Stickers Store inside WhatsApp that lists several sticker packs to choose from.
- You will notice the above mentioned new sticker packs have been added to the ‘All Stickers’ list and these come with a play button right next to them, differentiating them from the regular one.
- Click on the sticker pack you want to download, and preview the stickers by tapping on them.
- Once you make a decision, you can click on the ‘Download’option at the bottom of the screen.
- This sticker pack will now be added to the Stickers section, and you can now choose to use them in conversations.
These animated stickers will play just once in a particular chat, and don’t loop indefinitely. If you want to trigger their animation, users will have to scroll up & down to play it. However, by default, the animated sticker plays once and stops on its own. These stickers show up in the desktop app once the sticker is downloaded on mobile. However, the WhatsApp for Desktop app doesn’t have the option to access the Sticker Store. Also, WhatsApp currently seems to not support third-party stickers as we tried to add a couple through the various apps available on Google Play, but they don’t seem to work.