Static Telegram sticker images use the WebP file format.
WebP was chosen because it can provide compact image files while supporting transparency, an important feature for sticker artwork. Telegram’s sticker specifications generally require one dimension to be 512 pixels, allowing stickers to remain sharp while fitting efficiently into chats and downloads.
Static stickers differ from Telegram’s animated and video formats. Animated stickers traditionally use TGS, a compressed Lottie-based format, while video stickers use WebM. These formats are not interchangeable with ordinary static sticker files, even though all can appear in the same sticker ecosystem.
The common mix-up is PNG. PNG also supports transparency and is widely used when creating artwork, but Telegram’s static sticker files are delivered as WebP documents. GIF is associated with animation, while JPEG does not preserve transparency well and is therefore poorly suited to the cut-out appearance many stickers require. Telegram sticker packs are cloud-based and sync across a user’s devices.