Tips and ideas for making custom AI emojis and stickers from photos, selfies, and text prompts.
An emoji is a character nobody can add to. A sticker is an image anyone can make. Every custom emoji, Memoji and Genmoji included, is a sticker. What each one is, where each one works, and which to use for what.
Nobody wants another generic cat sticker; everybody wants a sticker of your cat. Eight photos, eight moods, text prompts for the poses you never caught, and a pack installed in WhatsApp and iMessage in fifteen minutes.
Genmoji is free and well made, and it needs an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, draws only in Apple's style, and sends to WhatsApp as an image. An honest comparison with a custom emoji and sticker maker, and when to use both.
WhatsApp's built-in sticker maker cuts a photo out. Pixmoji draws stickers in cartoon, anime, or cute style and installs them as a pack in your WhatsApp keyboard. How to make a pack people actually use, and how it spreads through the group.
The style changes an AI emoji more than the prompt. What each of the five styles is good for, which looks most like you, and why a sticker set needs one style.
iMessage has a real sticker system since iOS 17. Here is how to get custom emoji into the drawer, send them three ways, use them as reactions, and keep the drawer tidy.
The emoji you want does not exist? Describe it. How text to emoji works on any iPhone, and the prompt rules that get you what you pictured instead of something vaguely related.
The keyboard never has the emoji you need. Here is what Apple's Memoji and Genmoji can do, where they stop, and how to make a custom emoji from a selfie, a photo, or a sentence on any iPhone.
Your dog, your friend, your coffee: turn the photo into a sticker for WhatsApp and iMessage. The built-in iOS cutout, the drawn version with Pixmoji, and which photos work.
Memoji never quite looks like you. A selfie-to-emoji app does. How to shoot the selfie, pick a style, and build a personal reaction pack for iMessage and WhatsApp.
