How to make a LINE chat screenshot that looks real

What you need

A contact or group name, profile photos if you want them, and a short script. Fakeconvo's LINE chat generator draws the chat in the LINE style for iPhone, is free, needs no account and puts no watermark on the PNG. Your photos and text stay in your browser.

Five steps to a realistic LINE chat

1. Set up the chat. Under People, type the other person's name; it shows in the header, and next to their messages as a round letter avatar, or click the round button before the name to add a profile photo. For a group, turn on "Group chat", type the "Group name" and use "+ Add person": LINE puts the member count after the name, like "Hiking club (4)" (you count too).
2. Write the messages. Under Messages, use "+ From …" for the others and "+ From me" for yours. Yours are green on the right, theirs white on the left, over LINE's blue-grey wallpaper. The first message in a row from someone else gets their avatar and their name above the bubble, in a 1:1 chat as well as in a group.
3. Set the "Read" labels. LINE has no check marks: the time sits beside each bubble, and once a message of yours is read, "Read" appears above its time. Pick "Read" in a message's "Status" to show it; "Sent" and "Delivered" show only the time. In a group it becomes "Read 3", counting the other members. Turn off "Read receipts" to hide it everywhere, or "Show timestamps" to drop the times and the "Today" pill at the top.
4. Add replies, reactions and photos. Pick an older message in "Reply to" and LINE quotes it inside the top of the bubble, with the sender's name above a thin line (a quoted photo shows a small thumbnail and "Photo"). Under "Reactions", tap an emoji to add it under the bubble. "+ Photo" sends an image, with an optional "Caption", and "+ Date / notice" adds a centred pill such as "Yuki joined the group".
5. Set the look and export. Turn on "Dark mode" for LINE's dark theme, set the "Status bar time" and battery, and download the PNG at 2x or 3x, as the phone screen or the whole chat.

Details that make a LINE chat look staged

Real LINE chats are quick and casual: short lines, an emoji reaction instead of an answer, a reply to something from a few minutes ago. One long, perfectly punctuated paragraph reads like an email.

Watch the times and the "Read" labels. Keep a live conversation a minute or two apart, and set the status bar clock a little after the last message. "Read" usually sits on all your messages up to the last one the other person answered; a "Read" on your newest message with no reply after it tells a different story, so make sure that's the one you mean. In a group, "Read 5" in a group of four is the kind of mismatch people spot, so add every member.

Use it the right way

LINE screenshots are for videos, memes, stories, app mock-ups and lessons, such as showing a class what a fake "you won a prize, send your bank details" message looks like. Do not put words in the mouths of real people, do not make a chat that looks like proof of something that never happened, and do not use one to scam, bully or embarrass anyone. Our acceptable use page has the details.