.TGS File Extension

Telegram provides animated stickers to allow you to enhance messages with animations beyond simple static graphics. The service originally only utilized .WEBP images for stickers but introduced the TGS format in July 2019 (version 5.9 of Telegram), which can store sticker animations at higher resolutions and smaller file sizes than the static WEBP stickers.

The TGS format is based on the Lottie library, which renders JSON-formatted data from Adobe After Effects animations. The format consists of a JSON text file exported from an animation in Adobe After Effects (with the Bodymovin-TG plugin) that is compressed with gzip compression as a .GZIP file. The text file stores information about the animation in JSON format, whereas the gzip compression reduces the size of the file.

TGS animated stickers cannot be larger than 64 KB or longer than 3 seconds and must be looped. Also, the sticker cannot go off of the canvas and the canvas size must be 512x512 pixels.

TGS files are not meant to be opened with Telegram. Instead, the files are typically only used by Telegram users creating their own animated sticker packs to be added to the messaging service. If you created a TGS animated sticker pack, you must send the /​newanimated command to the @stickers bot, then send the TGS files with a 100x100 pixels icon to successfully upload the pack to Telegram. After completing the upload you can use and share the sticker pack.

You can also open TGS files by decompressing them with a decompression program that supports the gzip algorithm, such as Corel WinZip or Apple Archive Utility.

You can use the website Emojibest.com to convert TGS files to the .GIF (Graphical Image Interchange) format. Additionally, PC users can use Ed Asriyan's Lottie Converter to convert TGS files to GIF file.