Messaging app company Telegram reworked the format of animated stickers to reduce the amount of data they consume while providing a bump in quality.

In a blog post, the company said engineers had developed a method which reduces the amount of data used by stickers to around six-times the size of an average photograph, leaving them at around 20KB to 30KB in total. Engineers achieved the reduction by experimenting with vector graphics, packaging methods and “forbidden magic”, through which they created a picture format dubbed .TGS.

Optimisations of the new format also delivered battery life benefits, with the .TGS stickers consuming less power than GIFs at a rate of 60fps.

Telegram launched static stickers in 2015, offering free access for artists creating images along with free downloads for users. A total of 2 billion people have since gained access to the company’s format across a variety of apps.

It is adopting the same approach for the animated stickers, bullishly predicting similarly stellar uptake.