Discord emoji maker

Discord emoji size: two numbers, one of them strict

Discord's developer documentation gives the limit plainly: an emoji file can weigh at most 256 KB, and the same ceiling applies to animated ones. It also describes the image as 128×128. Upload something larger in pixels and Discord shrinks it for you. Upload something heavier than 256 KB and the upload simply fails.

So the weight is what you actually have to manage. A three-second clip at 128 pixels sounds small, but busy footage (water, crowds, camera shake) can still blow past the limit. This page starts at full quality and, if the file comes out too heavy, lowers the frame rate and the colour count step by step until Discord will take it.

Framing for a tiny canvas

In a normal message an emoji is drawn at roughly the height of a line of text. Almost everything outside the main subject turns into noise at that size, so zoom the square in until a face or a gesture fills it edge to edge. One movement repeated (a nod, a blink, a thumbs-up snapping into place) reads far better than a whole scene.

Getting it onto your server

1. Server Settings, then Emoji. You need the Manage Expressions permission.
2. Upload Emoji and pick the GIF from this page.
3. Name it with letters, numbers or underscores. The name becomes its :shortcode:.

Anyone with that permission can add animated emoji, though sending them in chat is a Nitro perk. How many animated slots a server gets depends on its boost level.

Two common snags