Discord Emoji Maker

Making an emoji, start to finish

1. Choose a picture or GIF. PNG, JPG, WebP and GIF all work. You can also drag the file onto the box or paste it.
2. Make it square. Fill crops a square out of the picture: drag it to move the crop, use Zoom to go in closer, or use the arrow keys. Fit keeps the whole picture and leaves the extra space clear. Turn on Pixel art for sprites and pixel drawings so the edges stay hard.
3. Name it. Type the name people will use between colons. If Discord would refuse it, the page says why and offers a cleaned version. The download uses that name, so the upload dialog fills it in for you.
4. Make the emoji. Pictures update on their own. For a GIF, tap Make emoji. Check the dark and light previews, then tap Download. Upload it in Server Settings under Emoji, or through Add Emoji in the emoji picker on desktop and in the browser.

Seven test files, one emoji each

We ran these through the page on October 23, 2026 in desktop Chrome. Every file came out at 128 × 128 and under 256 KB, and each downloaded file was checked for its real pixel size and byte count afterward. Input sizes are in KB and MB (1,000 bytes per KB); results are in KiB (1,024 bytes), the unit Discord's developer docs use. The GIFs were made for testing, and the noisy ones are close to the worst case for GIF.

Worked example. The 400 × 400 noise GIF is 10,789,752 bytes with 90 frames. At full 128 × 128 the page tried a lossless pack first, then stronger compression, then fewer colors. None of that fit with all 90 frames, so it kept every 2nd frame and slowed each one down so the loop runs at the same speed. Result: 224,446 bytes (219.2 KiB), 45 frames, 7 encodes, 38.2 seconds. With Allow smaller than 128 × 128 turned on, the same file came out at 80 × 80 with all 90 frames, 223,714 bytes, in 38.7 seconds. Since Discord shows emoji at 32 × 32, the smaller one usually looks better in chat because the motion stays smooth.

The same switch helped the 300 frame, 18.5 MB test GIF most: at 128 × 128 it needed every 4th frame (75 frames, 225.6 KiB), while at 64 × 64 it kept every 2nd frame (150 frames, 205.6 KiB). Times depend on your device. Phones are slower, and long noisy GIFs take the longest.

What Discord accepts for custom emoji (checked October 23, 2026)

Discord's help page says KB and its developer docs say KiB, which are 256,000 and 262,144 bytes. This page aims for 256,000 bytes so the file passes either way. If the upload dialog in your app shows a different rule, trust the dialog.

Fill, Fit and pixel art

Emoji are square, and most pictures are not. Fill is the usual choice: it crops a square, so the subject fills the whole emoji and reads well at 32 pixels. Fit is for logos and wide text where cutting anything off would ruin it. The picture shrinks to fit inside the square and the spare space stays see-through, so it blends into both the dark and light themes.

Resizing normally smooths edges, which is right for photos and drawings. For pixel art it turns crisp sprites into mush, so the Pixel art switch keeps each pixel a hard block instead. It looks best when the art is a whole multiple of the final size, like 32 or 64 pixels across.

Names Discord will take

The name is what people type, like :party_cat:. Spaces, dashes, dots, accents and emoji in the name get refused. The page swaps runs of those for a single underscore, turns accented letters into plain ones (Ünïcode becomes Unicode), trims the result to 32 characters, and adds _emoji if only one character is left. A name made entirely of symbols becomes my_emoji, so you will want to type your own.

Where this falls short

• GIF pixels are either fully see-through or fully solid. Soft shadows and glows around a transparent GIF turn into a hard edge. Still pictures come out as PNG, which keeps soft edges.
• Animated WebP and APNG files are treated as stills: the page uses the first frame. Convert them to GIF first if you need the motion.
• HEIC photos from iPhones do not open in most browsers. Convert them with the HEIC to PNG converter first.
• Discord re-processes every emoji it stores and shows it at 32 × 32, so tiny details and thin text vanish no matter how clean the file is.
• The 48 and 22 pixel previews are our guess at an emoji-only message and an emoji inside a sentence. Discord's own sizes can differ by app and zoom level.
• Very long or noisy GIFs can take half a minute or more, and phones limit how big a file the page will open.

Need a sticker, a shorter GIF for chat, or a banner instead? The Discord GIF compressor handles those sizes, and the Discord tools page has every Discord limit in one table.

ToolPetal is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Discord. Discord is a trademark of Discord Inc. Limits can change; we link to Discord's own pages so you can check.

Questions about Discord emoji