Telegram Tips

Profile Videos. You can upload both photos and videos to your profile, showing off all your good sides. Select a video from your gallery, make any edits you’d like, then drag across the timeline to select a frame for your static picture in chats. When someone opens your profile, they’ll see your video play in an enchanting loop.

Video Calls. Start a one-on-one video call with a user from their profile page for a little face-to-face communication. You can switch your video on or off at any time, and are free to multitask in other chats – video calls support Picture-in-Picture mode. All voice and video calls are protected with end-to-end encryption. To confirm your connection, compare the four emoji shown on screen. If they match with your partner’s, your call is 100% secure.

Voice Chats. Telegram’s powerful group chats go beyond text and stickers, allowing persistent audio and video calls that members can join or leave at any time. After joining a voice chat, you are free to move around the app and send messages in any conversation. The microphone controls remain on screen allowing you to quickly mute and unmute at any time. Admins can get the conversation started by opening the group’s profile, tapping ⋮ or ⋯ and selecting “Start Voice Chat”.

Voice Chat Widget. Android users can enable a widget to control their microphone and see who’s talking even when Telegram is in the background.

Push-to-Talk Shortcuts. Set a preferred key to toggle your microphone in Telegram Desktop or Telegram for macOS.

Search Filters. To quickly find specific photos, videos or documents, tap on the tabs in Global Search. This lets you refine search results by keyword, source, media type and time period.

Search Results as a List. The Search function allows you to easily jump between messages containing a keyword – or sent by a particular person, or even from a certain day. Tap the number in the bottom bar to open list view and see all the results on one page.

GIF Panel. Featuring a Trending section and emoji-based tabs, quickly find a GIF to match the moment with a simple search and scroll. GIFs you’ve recently sent appear in their own tab for easy access, and you can long press on your favorites to save them for future use.

Live Location. Share your live location to let contacts or group members follow you on your journey. When multiple group members share their live location, they all appear on the same map. From the map, you can set an alert that will notify you when your friends are close. Live location is only shared for as long as you choose, and only in the chats you send it to. You can see in which chats your live location is still active from the chat list and can stop sharing it at any time.

Badge Counter Settings. By default, badges show how many unread messages you have, but can be changed to not include channels or count only unread chats.

Bulk Actions. Long press on a chat to open a menu that lets you select multiple chats and then pin, mute, archive or delete them. Tap ⋮ for even more options, like mark as read or add to folder. On iOS you can do the same by tapping the Edit button in the top left corner of your chat list.

Anonymous Forwarding. You can restrict who can forward your messages. When this setting is enabled, your forwarded messages will no longer lead back to your account — they'll just display an unclickable name in the “from” field. This way people you chat with will have no verifiable proof you ever sent them anything. Available in Settings > Privacy & Security > Forwarded messages.

Multi-sharing from Other Apps. When using the share extension, press and hold to select multiple recipients – and even add a comment in case your savage subtweet needs some context.

Chat Backgrounds. You can use one of your photos or search the web for wallpapers, add effects and then share your backgrounds with friends via links. Telegram backgrounds support motion and blur effects. You can also set any color as your background, apply a pattern and tweak its intensity.

Quick Night Mode Switch. On Android, open the side menu and tap the 🌙/☀️ icon to switch between your Day and Night Themes. On iOS, go to Settings > Appearance > Night Mode. You can also set your themes to switch automatically on a schedule, with local sunrise/sunset times, or following your system settings.

Message Bubble Corners. Change how round your message bubbles are from Settings > Chat Settings on Android or Settings > Appearance on iOS.

Multiple accounts: preview chat list. You can press and hold on another connected account in Settings for a sneak peek of its chats list.

Group Stats. Owners of large groups with over 500 members can view beautiful, detailed graphs about its activity and growth. Stats are also available for channels.

Channel Stats. Owners of channels with more than 50 subscribers have access to detailed statistics and informative graphics about subscriber growth and post performance. Stats are also available for large groups.

Creating Polls. Create a poll in your group or channel – simply choose the “Poll” option in the attachment menu. There are multiple setting options such as visible votes and allowing more than one answer from each user.