How can I use emoticons?
Type an emoji from your keyboard's emoji panel, or open the sticker and emoji panel inside Telegram next to the message field. Both insert into the message you are writing.
The panel holds three different things
- Emoji. The standard set, the same characters every app uses.
- Stickers. Larger images sent on their own rather than inside a sentence. There are hundreds of thousands of packs, and adding one takes a single tap.
- Animated emoji. Certain emoji play an animation when sent on their own, and tapping one in the chat replays it.
Shortcuts worth knowing
- Type a colon followed by the start of a name to search, for example :smile.
- Start typing a word and Telegram suggests matching stickers above the keyboard.
- Send a single emoji with no other text to get the large animated version.
- Press and hold a message to react to it with an emoji instead of replying.
Custom emoji
Telegram Premium adds custom emoji, which are small images that behave like emoji and can appear inline in your text. Sets work like sticker packs: add one and it becomes available in every chat. Subscribers see the artwork; everyone else sees a close standard emoji instead, so nothing breaks for readers without Premium.
Sticker packs are the part most people underuse. The sticker directory lists verified packs by format and language, and any of them installs in one tap.