Discord emoji and sticker sizes128 px emoji, 320 px stickers, and the byte limits.

Custom emoji

• Recommended size: 128×128 px. Discord shows emoji much smaller in messages and larger in jumbo (emoji-only) messages.
• File size: under 256 KB.
• Formats: PNG, JPG and GIF are the safe choices; animated emoji are GIFs.
• Slots: servers start with 50 static and 50 animated emoji; Boost levels add more.

Discord’s support article on custom emoji is the source for these. It also explains who can upload: members with the Manage Expressions permission.

Custom stickers

• Size: exactly 320×320 px.
• File size: under 512 KB.
• Formats: PNG for still stickers, APNG for animated ones. Discord’s blog has also mentioned GIF support.
• Slots: come with server Boost levels; a server without Boosts has no custom sticker slots.

Stickers are sent on their own and shown large, so they can carry a full pose, a prop or a sign that would be unreadable as an emoji.

Why emoji end up over 256 KB

A 128 px GIF has 16,384 pixels per frame. Thirty frames of a photographic clip with a different palette in each is enough to blow past 256 KB. The fixes, in order of how little they hurt:

1. 1
   Crop and resize

   Make it exactly 128×128 with the subject filling the frame.

2. 2
   Remove the background

   Transparent pixels compress far better than noise.

3. 3
   Share one palette

   One palette for every frame; then try 128 or 64 colors.

4. 4
   Fewer frames

   Drop every other frame and double the delay.

5. 5
   Shorter loop

   Cut the clip to the gesture itself.

The free Discord emoji resizer on this site does steps 1, 3 and 4 automatically and shows the resulting file size.

APNG for animated stickers

APNG is a PNG with frames. It supports real alpha (soft edges) rather than GIF’s on/off transparency, which is why it looks cleaner as a sticker. Most image editors don’t export APNG well; dedicated tools or code do. Our exporter writes palette-based APNG (up to 256 colors plus transparency), which keeps an 8-frame 320 px sticker comfortably under 512 KB for flat character art.

Designing for Discord’s two themes

Discord users switch between dark and light themes, and messages sit on varying backgrounds. A transparent emoji with dark outlines vanishes on dark mode; one with only light outlines vanishes on light mode. A thin white outline around the whole character, with a darker line inside, works on both. That’s the outline our emotes and stickers get after slicing.

Nitro and who can use what

Uploading to your server doesn’t require Nitro. Using emoji is a different matter: Discord ties some uses — such as animated emoji and emoji from other servers — to Nitro. Rules change, so check Discord’s current emoji help page when planning a server pack.

Naming and organizing a server pack

Emoji names must be at least 2 characters and use letters, numbers and underscores. Use a shared prefix (mochi_hi, mochi_gg) so members can type the prefix and see the whole set. Keep the most-used reactions static where possible so they work for everyone, and use animated slots for reactions that benefit from motion.

How big emoji actually appear

In a normal message, Discord draws custom emoji at about the height of a line of text. In an emoji-only message (“jumbo” emoji) they’re much bigger. In reactions under a message they’re small again. A 128 px source covers all of these on high-density screens; smaller sources look soft in jumbo messages.

That spread is why Discord emoji benefit from the same rules as Twitch emotes: a bold silhouette, thick outline, few colors, and an expression big enough to read at line height.

PNG, GIF, APNG and WebP — which to use

• PNG — still emoji and still stickers. Lossless, full transparency. The default.
• GIF — animated emoji. 256 colors and on/off transparency, so give it an outline. Universally supported.
• APNG — animated stickers. Real alpha transparency and usually smaller than an equivalent GIF for flat art.
• WebP — supported in many places on Discord, but PNG and GIF remain the safest for uploads.
• JPG — avoid for emoji: no transparency, and compression noise around edges.

Planning a server pack

Fifty static and fifty animated slots sounds like a lot until a community starts suggesting emoji. Plan the core set first: greetings, agreement, laughter, love, sadness, surprise, a “sip”, sleep or AFK, and something loud for hype. Make those consistent — same character, same outline, same style — and they’ll get used. Leave a few slots for community suggestions and seasonal swaps.

For stickers, plan even fewer: three to five strong reactions that read big. Stickers are sent on their own, so each one should work without context.

If your community also watches you on Twitch, matching emoji there and on Discord makes the whole community feel like one place. The same character can produce both sets, sized for each.

Uploading from a phone

Discord’s mobile apps let server admins add emoji and stickers from the phone’s photo library. Download the files first (our zip opens on iOS and Android in the Files app), then go to Server Settings → Emoji or Stickers. Animated APNG stickers can show as still images in some phone galleries; that’s the gallery, not the file — upload it anyway and Discord will animate it.

Upload errors and what they mean

• “File cannot be larger than 256.0 kb” — the emoji is over the size limit. Reduce frames or colors.
• Sticker rejected — the sticker isn’t exactly 320×320, is over 512 KB, or is in an unsupported format.
• No upload button — you don’t have the Manage Expressions permission, or the server is out of slots.
• Blurry result — the source was smaller than 128 px or saved as JPG.

Outlines, padding and edges

Two details make Discord emoji look professional. First, a little padding: leave a pixel or two of transparent space at the edges of the 128 px square so outlines aren’t clipped when Discord scales the image. Second, a clean edge: GIF can’t do soft transparency, so threshold the alpha (fully transparent or fully opaque per pixel) and let the outline hide the step. PNG and APNG can keep soft edges, which is why stickers often look smoother than animated emoji.

If you use the same art for Twitch and Discord, export each at its own size rather than reusing the 112 px Twitch file — the 128 px Discord version keeps a little more detail.

Making emoji and stickers that match

The easiest way to make a server pack look intentional is to draw every emoji and sticker from one character with the same outline and palette. If different people make emoji for your server, give them a character sheet: front, side and back views, a few expressions, and the hex codes of the colors. That’s what keeps a pack from looking like a collection of unrelated stickers.

On this site, the workbench does this for you: lock a character once, make emotes, then export Discord emoji at 128 px and stickers at 320 px from the same frames, each file checked against the limits above. Stickers made from existing emotes cost nothing extra.

Whatever tool you use, check the final files rather than the source: the size and byte limits apply to what you upload, not what you designed.

Checklist

• Emoji: 128×128, under 256 KB, transparent, readable at small size.
• Stickers: exactly 320×320, under 512 KB, PNG or APNG, outlined.
• Names: prefix + short word, letters/numbers/underscores.
• Boosts: check sticker slots before planning a sticker pack.