From Images to a Live Telegram Sticker Pack: the @Stickers Bot Workflow, Step by Step

My last two posts were about making single stickers that WhatsApp accepts. This one is the next step: turning a folder of images into a live Telegram sticker pack with its own t.me/addstickers/... link — no code for the publishing part, just one Python script to get the images into spec.

What Telegram actually checks

If you're just starting out, static PNG is the simplest path: no Lottie tooling, no timing rules — resize, pad, upload.

Step 1 — batch-prepare a whole folder with Pillow

from pathlib import Path
from PIL import Image

SRC = Path("my_images")        # raw images, any size or format
OUT = Path("telegram_ready")
OUT.mkdir(exist_ok=True)

for i, f in enumerate(sorted(SRC.iterdir()), 1):
    if f.suffix.lower() not in {".png", ".jpg", ".jpeg", ".webp"}:
        continue
    im = Image.open(f).convert("RGBA")
    im.thumbnail((512, 512))                     # keeps aspect ratio
    canvas = Image.new("RGBA", (512, 512), (0, 0, 0, 0))
    canvas.paste(im, ((512 - im.width) // 2, (512 - im.height) // 2), im)
    canvas.save(OUT / f"{i:02d}.png")

Why PNG for the output: at 512 px there's rarely a size problem, so PNG sidesteps any quality tuning. If one of your stickers does blow past 512 KB (noisy, highly detailed art can), re-save just that file as WebP with quality=90 — Telegram accepts WebP the same way.

Step 2 — talk to @Stickers

Open t.me/Stickers in Telegram. This bot builds every public pack on the platform.

1. Send /newpack — it asks for a pack name (this is the display name users see).
2. Upload your images as files, not as photos. This is the single most common mistake: sending as a photo makes Telegram compress the image, which wrecks transparency and sharp edges. Use the paperclip → File, or drag the file onto the chat on desktop.
3. After each upload the bot asks for one emoji. Pick the best match — that emoji is how your sticker gets suggested in the emoji panel later.
4. When the last sticker is in, send /publish.
5. Choose a short public link. You get a URL like t.me/addstickers/my_pack_name — anyone who opens it can install the pack in two taps.

Useful later: /addsticker appends to an existing pack, /delpack deletes one, /cancel backs out of any wizard.

The failure modes I hit, so you don't have to

• 511×512 or 513×512 → rejected. "One side exactly 512" means exactly. My thumbnail((512, 512)) plus padding canvas handles this, but if you resize by hand, double-check.
• Uploaded as photo → blurry sticker. Resend as file. There's no way to fix a compressed upload after the fact.
• GIF ≠ animated sticker. Animated packs need TGS (a Lottie JSON converted with the official tooling), not a renamed GIF. Start with static if you don't want to touch that toolchain.

Make it once, use it twice

The same square, transparent PNG that Telegram accepts is one quality-loop away from being a WhatsApp sticker — WhatsApp wants exactly 512×512 WebP under 100 KB instead of "one side 512". I covered that conversion, including the quality loop, in my previous post.

Or skip the pipeline entirely

If you'd rather see finished packs first: FunnieStickers is a free library of 192 stickers, shipped in WhatsApp and Telegram formats — no sign-up, click to download. The meme and reactions sets are the ones I'd install first.

Built a pack from this? Drop the link in the comments — I actually install them.