New Stickers Disappear Immediately (iOS 18 Messages App)

Backup your phone. Factory reset it. Sign in to iCloud and restore using the iCloud backup. Fixed the issue for me. I moved from my 15 Pro to a 16 Pro and I think the problem stemmed from doing the Quick Start option aka when I transferred stuff by setting my old phone next to my new one. But yeah, resetting my phone and restoring from the iCloud backup fixed the problem for me. All my stickers are back.

Well. Did a cloud backup, after which I reset the phone, and restored from same backup.

This and few other minor issues are gone, everything’s working now.

Couple of hours nuisance, mostly because waiting for everything to download.

All I had to do again, was adding cards to Apple Pay. Even watch was like nothing ever happened.

So, just do this.

FWIW, I caved today and took the nuclear route (method 1) … I erased the phone, set up as new, tested stickers (it worked), erased again, restored from iCloud backup. That fixed the issue.

Honestly, it was nowhere near as painful or time-consuming, as I had feared. Most apps logged me in again without any issues. A few financial apps required a separate login, but nothing traumatic.

Also FWIW, the following did not work: Creating an encrypted backup on my Mac, restoring to factory settings, using the Mac, and backing up from the encrypted back up on the Mac. That process was extremely time consuming. It took way over two hours and failed to fix the issue.

At this point, although I was skeptical and fearful, I recommend method one.

Issue was finally fixed for me after downloading 18.3 a few minutes ago. At first when went to messages and chose to add sticker or said I didn’t have any, but when created a new one it saved and didn’t delete. Then when went to my photos and created another one, when it saved it showed all my old stickers back. When went back to messages and tried to add a sticker again, this time all my old stickers were there as well as new ones just created.

I ended up fixing this issue. I had to go into my iCloud files on my phone and delete stickers. Then go into backups and delete my old iPhone 12 backup. Manually backup my new 16 pro max then factory reset and use the newest backup and now I can create stickers now. My guess is it’s something wrong when going from an older phone to these new ones?

I had the same problem, I upgraded phones from 12 ProMax Plus to a 14 and stickers disappeared with IOS 17.5.1 and 18.1. For a week I tried everything. I had a chat with apple support and they made sure I had a fresh backup and instructed me to wipe the phone and use my latest backup.

This worked and stickers are back it’s an extreme fix, but I have my old stickers and can create new stickers.

it should be simpler but it isn’t at the moment.

Confirmed stickers are FIXED in 18.2 which was released today, Wednesday, 12.11.2024.

All my old stickers are there, and I'm also able to add new ones.

Thank you Apple.

Everyone in this thread, please submit a bug report for broken/blank/un-creatable stickers here:

Feedback - iPhone - Apple

The more people report this, the more attention it will get and will likely be fixed in an upcoming update.

This is not an isolated issue since we're all experiencing it.

I fixed this on my IOS18 iPhone this morning! I noticed yesterday that all my stickers were gone, and I was unable to make or create new stickers from my photos. This morning, I turned off a setting In keyboard that said send stickers from emoji keyboard. All of a sudden, all my stickers came back and I was able to save stickers successfully again! Good luck out there!

I had to back up my phone, hard reset and restore the phone FROM AN ICLOUD BACKUP (not from another iPhone).

It takes a while to restore all my stickers, but that fixes it for me. That said, this is still a bug and must be fixed Apple!

This fixed it!

Go to settings, general, keyboard.

Scroll down to the bottom, toggle stickers (emoji) off.

Restart your phone.

Viola. All stickers back.

Go to above settings and toggle the switch back on as you like.

Didn't work for me either. I solved the problem by restoring to the new iphone from a backup i made of the old iphone with Apple Devices on a laptop. Had to re-establish all the security settings for various apps, but other than that worked well.

I had to reset my device. I was concerned about the eSIM but reset without erasing eSIM and everything works fine now. Stickers are saving and I’m happy!

I finally erased my iPhone 16PM, while keeping my eSIM, and restoring from the iCloud backup that I did right beforehand. It fixed the sticker issue just like others have said too. I agree Apple should have already fixed this problem and a tech from an Apple Store confirmed it was an issue they were aware of as well. For me, I was just sick of having the outstanding problem so I decided to use the solution that worked best under my circumstances- I understand it may not be the solution that works best for others.