How to make a fake text conversation that looks real

What you need

A browser and the script of the conversation. Fakeconvo runs in the browser, is free, needs no account and puts no watermark on the PNG. Photos you add stay on your device.

Five steps to a realistic chat

1. Pick the app your people would really use. Two iPhone users text in iMessage, a group of friends in Brazil or Germany is on WhatsApp, and people who met through a profile talk in Instagram DM.
2. Set up the people. Give each one a first name and a photo, or keep the initials. Short names look the most real; full names with surnames rarely show in a chat header.
3. Write the messages the way people type. Short lines, several bubbles in a row from the same person, a lowercase start now and then, one emoji instead of five. Reactions and a quoted reply make it feel lived in.
4. Get the clock right. Times go up by a minute or two between replies, the status bar time is a little later than the last message, and a long pause gets a time header like "Today 18:42".
5. Export at 2x or 3x. Choose the phone screen size for a story or video, or "Whole chat" for a long thread, then download the PNG and drop it into your editor.

Details that give a mock-up away

A battery at exactly 100%, the same time on every message, read ticks on a message sent a second ago, and perfect punctuation in a casual chat are the usual tells. So are a dark-mode chat with a light status bar, and a contact name that is longer than the header can fit.

Before you export, read the chat once from the bottom up, the way a viewer scrolls it. If a line sounds written rather than typed, shorten it.

Use it the right way

Mock-ups are for stories, videos, ads, design work and teaching. Do not use them to deceive, harass or impersonate a real person, and do not pass one off as evidence. Our acceptable use page has the details.