Write the conversation, or paste one. GhostShorts animates it as a phone chat, iMessage, WhatsApp, Instagram or Tinder, gives each side an AI voice, and renders a 1080x1920 MP4 over a looping background. Renders usually take about a minute. A silent preview of your own conversation plays free in the browser before you pay.
Write a conversation33 seconds
Read from the bubbles this clip renders, not from a saved draft.
Build your chat below, hit preview, and watch it play instantly, then add AI voices, typing effects, and HD export. No account needed to try it.
Four steps, all of them in the Text Messages wizard.
In the Platform section choose iMessage, WhatsApp, Instagram or Tinder, a light or dark skin, and the contact name.
In the Script section add each message in order and mark who sent it. Watch the silent preview of your own chat for free.
In the Voices section pick a voice for each side and press Generate AI voices. Every bubble is then held on screen for the length of its clip.
Pick a background clip, then press Export video. The render takes about a minute and lands in your library as a 1080x1920 MP4.
People who already write the drama: storytime and chat-fiction accounts, meme pages, agencies producing the same format for several brand accounts. It is also the one template on the API that a scheduler can drive unattended, which is why an agency running one or two of these a day tends to end up there rather than in the wizard.
It does not write the conversation for you; there is no AI script step on this template. It cannot import a real chat export, so the messages are typed in. It has no Hinge or Bumble skin, no voice cloning, and it will not post anything anywhere. And it is not a way to pass off a fabricated exchange as a real screenshot of a real person.
Voice, images, scripts and captions are included on every plan. AI credits pay for motion and premium models — nothing else touches them.
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Made a Reddit story short in the middle of my chem class. 100K views before I got home.
Honestly thought this was just another overhyped AI tool. But it actually delivers and is super easy to use. I already created 10 shorts in 1 day.
Tried a couple viral formats on the app. A month later... 10 million views. This app is stupid easy to use.
Making edits CapCut felt homeworkish. GhostShorts is easy af, almost feels likes I am on autopilot.
All I do is copy a Reddit post, paste it in, export, done. It's stupid easy.
Used to doom scroll all night. Now I post the same type of videos I used to binge.
I run a few fake text story channels. Jesus I've hit over 5 million likes on just one of my channels alone. It's ridiculous.
GhostShorts saved me countless hours of editing time. Highly recommended!
I cut my content creation time by 80% after switching to GhostShorts. It's the only tool that actually keeps up with how fast I work.
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The same template runs through the GhostShorts API and MCP server. Connect it once and ask your assistant for a video; it comes back as a finished MP4 on the same plan and credits.
claude mcp add --transport http ghostshorts https://api.ghostshorts.com/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer <your API key>"This template is available as fake_text_message on the API. Plain-text guide for agents
Link straight in: ghostshorts.com/fake-text-video-generator?script=…&contact=…
Text message videos tap into something deeply human: the urge to read other people’s conversations. When a chat plays out on screen, it feels like looking over someone’s shoulder at their phone, and that pull keeps people watching.
The chat layout is also instantly familiar. Even someone on Android has seen the blue and gray iMessage bubbles thousands of times in memes and screenshots, so there is nothing to figure out. Viewers understand the format the moment it appears and start reading. A talking-head video asks them to decide whether the person is worth listening to first; a chat skips that step.
The pacing does the rest. Every new bubble is a small hook, a reason to stay for the next one. A conversation that keeps raising the stakes gives the viewer dozens of those moments in under a minute.
The format is fully faceless, too. No camera, no microphone, no lighting, no quiet room. Everything comes from the conversation you write. Other faceless formats work on the same principle, such as Reddit story videos and Roblox rants.
Not every chat is worth watching. These are the formats creators come back to again and again, and what makes each one work.
| Format | What happens | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Prank texts | One side sends something ridiculous or shocking to see how the other reacts. | The humor lives in the unexpected reply. |
| Dramatic reveals | A conversation slowly uncovers a secret, a betrayal or an unexpected truth. | Tension builds with every message. |
| Relationship drama | Breakup texts, caught-cheating scenarios, jealous confrontations. | High emotional stakes get comments and shares. |
| Creepy texts | A wrong-number chat that turns dark, or messages from a sender who should not exist. | Fear keeps people watching to the last bubble. |
| Comedy exchanges | Witty back-and-forth, autocorrect fails, misunderstood messages, absurd scenarios. | Easy to rewatch and easy to send to a friend. |
| Plot twist stories | A chat that looks normal until one final message changes the meaning of everything before it. | The twist drives rewatches and “I did not see that coming” comments. |
The best ones share one thing: emotional stakes. Humor, tension, fear or surprise, the conversation has to make the viewer feel something. A flat exchange will not hold anyone, however good the animation looks. GhostShorts animates and voices the chat, but it does not write it for you, so the story is your part of the job.
A few things about how the Text Messages template works will shape how you write.
Every conversation is between you, the phone owner, and one contact. You set the contact’s name and can give them a profile photo. Mark each message as sent by you or by them. A conversation can hold up to 80 messages, and you can drag them into a new order at any time.
Choose iMessage, WhatsApp, Instagram or Tinder, each in a light or a dark skin. iMessage is the most widely recognized chat look. WhatsApp reads as home for audiences where it is the default messenger, and Tinder fits dating stories.
Each side gets its own AI voice, and every bubble stays on screen for as long as its voice clip runs. Short messages move fast, long ones linger. If you want a beat of silence before a message, add a delay to it, from half a second up to five seconds.
A message can be a picture instead of text. You choose how long a photo stays on screen, from one to ten seconds, which makes a photo a strong way to land a reveal.
The chat plays over a looping background clip from the library, with an optional background music track underneath. A silent preview of your own conversation plays in the browser before you pay, so you can check the timing first.
The same vertical video works everywhere short-form lives, but each platform rewards slightly different things.
The biggest home for text stories. TikTok weighs how much of a video people actually watch, so a tight conversation beats a long one. Hashtags such as #textstory, #textmessage and #fakechat help the right audience find you.
Shorts takes vertical videos up to three minutes. The message-by-message reveal suits a feed that rewards retention, and Shorts can keep surfacing a video through YouTube search long after you post it.
Reels also takes vertical videos up to three minutes. Relationship drama and comedy exchanges tend to travel well here, and a still of the key message can work as a companion post.
GhostShorts renders one 1080x1920 MP4 at 30 fps, the vertical format all three platforms expect. Upload the same file to each; there is nothing to re-export.
It is one of the first questions creators ask. In general, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram allow fictional and creative content, and a made-up chat between made-up people is fiction. What their rules go after is content that impersonates a real person, deceives people in a way that can cause harm, or harasses someone. The line is intent: entertainment is fine, passing off a fake conversation as a real person’s messages is not. Rules change, so read each platform’s current community guidelines before you build a channel on the format.
Give your characters made-up names instead of real people’s names. It keeps the content clearly in the entertainment category.
A line in the caption or description such as “fictional, for entertainment” costs nothing and makes your intent clear.
Do not make anything that could be mistaken for evidence of a real crime or a real emergency. Platforms act on that quickly.
If you dramatise a real exchange, take out names, numbers and anything that identifies the other person, and never present a conversation as a genuine screenshot of someone when it is not.
Before tools like this, there were two ways to make a text message video: screen record a real phone, or build the animation in After Effects. Here is how they compare.
| Screen recording | After Effects | GhostShorts | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Getting the chat on screen | Type every message live, often on two phones | Design and keyframe every bubble | Type the messages; the bubbles animate in order |
| Timing | As fast as you can type, mistakes included | Set by hand on a timeline | Each bubble held for its voice clip, plus any delay you add |
| Voices | Record separately and sync | Record separately and sync | One AI voice per side, generated in the wizard |
| A mistake | Means starting the take over | Means re-editing | Means editing one message and rendering again |
| Output | Depends on the phone | Professional, if you have the skills | 1080x1920 MP4 at 30 fps, every time |
| Cost | Your time | An Adobe subscription plus your time | Starter is $19.99 a month for 30 videos |
The real gain is consistency. With screen recording, a typo or a notification ruins the take. After Effects has a high ceiling but needs motion graphics skills. With GhostShorts you spend your time on the writing, and the render takes about a minute. If you also have footage you have already recorded, the auto captions template adds word-synced captions to it.
The video is the easy part. The story, pacing and structure decide whether it gets a hundred views or a million. These are the techniques that keep showing up in text stories that travel.
The first message has to grab attention immediately. “We need to talk” is worn out. Try something specific: “I just saw you at the mall with someone” or “I found something on your phone.” Treat it like the headline of your story.
Messages arriving at perfectly even intervals feel robotic. Real chats have quick replies in heated moments and long pauses when someone does not know what to say. Short messages already move fast, so save your delays for the moments that need them, such as a pause of a few seconds before the big reveal.
Real texts are short. Long paragraphs in a chat bubble look unnatural and slow everything down. Break a long thought into several short messages; each one becomes another small reveal.
A picture message is a strong payoff: the screenshot, the receipt, the photo nobody was supposed to see. Hold it on screen long enough for viewers to take it in.
The ending decides whether people share. A predictable ending gets scrolled past; a twist gets comments and rewatches. Write the last message so it changes the meaning of everything before it, for example “That was your best friend’s phone, not mine.” Or stop right before the final reply and let the comments ask for part 2.
Background music sets the tone under the voices: something tense for drama and creepy texts, something light for comedy and pranks. Keep it under the voices, not over them.
The silent preview of your own conversation is free. The render takes about a minute after that.
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