How to make a fake text message video for TikTok

A text-message video is a story, not a transcript. Before you open any tool, write the conversation out as plain text and check it has three things: a hook in the first one or two bubbles, a turn in the middle where the situation changes, and a punchline on the very last message. If the last bubble isn't the strongest one, re-order until it is.

Keep it short. Six to ten messages is the sweet spot — long enough to build tension, short enough to render cleanly inside the 20-second limit of HeyFake's video beta. A conversation that needs fifteen bubbles is usually two videos.

The platform changes the meaning of the same words. A confession on WhatsApp reads as "telling family"; the same lines on iMessage read as "telling a best friend". Video mode currently supports the fake WhatsApp chat and fake iMessage chat generators — pick WhatsApp for a global or family-facing character, iMessage for the US blue-bubble best-friend energy.

We dug into how much the platform alone shifts the read in the same-conversation-five-apps experiment — worth a read if you can't decide.

Open the Studio in video mode and type your messages in. Set the contact name and avatar, choose iOS or Android (or light/dark for iMessage), and — this matters — change the status-bar time away from 9:41. The 9:41 default is Apple's marketing time; leaving it there is one of the most common tells in the entire fake-screenshot genre.

Everything you set for a screenshot carries into the video: tick colours, the iMessage "Read" indicator, dark mode. Build it exactly as you would a still — the video inherits all of it.

Flat timing is what kills a fake-text video. If every message appears at the same interval, the brain reads it as a machine playing back a script. Real conversations have rhythm: a fast back and forth, then a pause, then a long message, then a typing bubble that hangs for a beat before the reply lands.

In the Video tab, open the per-message timing accordion. Add a longer delay before the message that carries the turn — let the viewer sit in the silence. Turn on a typing bubble before the punchline so there's a visible moment of "what are they going to say". Use the global speed control (0.5x–2x) to fit the whole thing under 20 seconds without flattening those beats.

The animated keyboard does a lot of free work here: "me" messages type out character by character, so the viewer watches the message being written. Leave it on — it's the difference between a video and a slideshow.

Building and previewing the chat is free and unlimited — loop the preview as many times as you need to get the pacing right. Only the final render counts against the beta limit (2 per day on a free account), so don't spend a render on a draft.

When it looks right, hit render. The MP4 comes back in the panel for download and a link is also emailed to you; rendered files are kept for 24 hours. Drop the file straight into CapCut or your editor of choice — it's already sized for vertical video.

A few details quietly announce "this is fake" even when everything else is right. Before you export, check:

• Status bar at 9:41 — change it. Real screen recordings are almost never at 9:41.
• Instant replies — nobody answers a heavy message in zero seconds. Add a delay.
• Wrong tick colours — blue ticks mean read, grey mean delivered. Match them to the story.
• A timestamp on every line — real WhatsApp bunches messages under one inline time. Per-line stamps look like a transcript.
• A punchline that isn't last — if the best bubble lands mid-conversation, the video deflates. Re-order.

Fix those and the video stops reading as "a tool made this" and starts reading as "someone screen-recorded their phone".