The most useful Telegram guide: life hacks when using the messenger

Telegram is convenient and popular. Recall that it is in this social network Trump supporters left after Parler had problems... Then the social network added 25 million users in three days. It is also the most demanded messenger in Russia. But the overwhelming majority of users do not even know how effective work in Telegram can be and how flexible it can be configured for their tasks. In addition, it contains a lot of interesting information, such as ForumDaily channel 🙂 Subscribe! The purpose of this article is to talk about these opportunities, which are often not obvious to the vast majority of users, writes Alex Exler in his blog exler.ru.

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Disable chat / channel notifications

How many times have I heard: “Yes, he has already tortured me: he writes and writes, the smartphone constantly beeps and beeps” or “I unsubscribed from this channel: there are too many messages coming in, the smartphone is always distracting.”

It seems that many users simply do not know how to turn off notifications for a specific chat/channel. This is done very simply: the menu icon on the top right in the chat/channel. There, select “Disable notifications” and then choose for how long or indefinitely.

Flexible configuration of channel notifications

Very few people know about this, but in Telegram, you can very flexibly configure notifications from channels. To get into these settings, you need to click on the channel avatar. There will be notifications on / off. So, if you click on them, a menu will appear.

And in it you need to click “Configure” - the following window will appear. The most interesting thing there is “smart notifications”. When you click on this item, options appear: you can set, for example, to make no more than one notification per couple of minutes (this way you will save notifications from the channel, and they will not constantly “tug” you if there are a large number of messages in the channel or group ). Well, you can also change the sound: that is, you can determine by the sound in which channel the message came.

Share location

You can either show another user your location or share your location with them in real time. When you click on the “Attach” icon, you need to click on “Geolocation” and select there: send the current geoposition, share for some time, the time range can be selected: 15 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours.

Telegram can simultaneously work on different devices

This messenger is tied only to a phone number, and it doesn’t matter how many smartphones, tablets and computers it is installed on: it will work everywhere. This is its big difference from WhatsApp, which for some reason can work on one single smartphone, and if you connect your account on another smartphone, then on the old device WhatsApp immediately starts yelling: “What a horror, you launched me on another smartphone , goodbye sir, I will die immediately on this smartphone!”

You can connect multiple accounts in one Telegram app

Many people use more than one Telegram account: for example, personal, work and secret. And all these accounts (well, more precisely, three of them) you can connect in one application, switching between them with one click. This is done in the application menu: on the right sidebar (where your photo and name are), you need to select an account and click the arrow.

You can edit the sent message

Two ways. Click on the message itself - then a context menu with the corresponding item will appear; or press and hold on the message - then a multiple selection menu will appear, where you can also edit the message if only one is selected.

Your subscriber will know that the message has been edited and when exactly it was done.

Pinned messages

Sometimes you need to save some of the sent chat messages so as not to lose them. To do this, click on the message and select “Pin” in the menu that appears. At the same time, you can also pin this message to your subscriber - Telegram gives you this opportunity.

You can pin several messages, pinned messages are in the panel above, when you switch them there, Telegram shows the corresponding message in the chat.

Delayed and silent message

Few users know about this opportunity. If you press and hold the send button for a message, a choice appears: “Send later” and “Send without sound.”

“Send later”—schedule the exact date and time for sending the message. A very useful opportunity for those who like to write messages to their exes while in a slight poetic euphoria: they just need to plan to send a message the next day, when the euphoria has already passed - this will give them time to read the message and understand whether it needs to be sent at all. You can also use this feature to remind yourself: for example, send a reminder to your other account.

As soon as deferred messages are set for a specific addressee, an icon appears in the input line, by clicking on which you can view all these messages.

“Send without sound” is also an interesting option. Such a message will silently sneak onto the subscriber’s smartphone, even if he/she has the sound turned up to full. However, Telegram also has a good thing called secret chat, which is discussed in the next paragraph.

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Secret chat

A secret chat can be created with any contact. Correspondence with the contact is conducted directly, encrypted, messages and media data do not enter the Telegram cloud and are not stored there.

Secret chat is tied to a specific device, the same account on another device will not see the secret chat, since it was not created on it.

If you log out of your account on the device, then all secret chats created on it will disappear.

Both participants in the secret chat can set the automatic deletion of the chat content on a timer. But not the entire chat will be deleted in bulk, but the text or media file that was viewed: the countdown starts from the moment of viewing. That is, if you have set the destruction, for example, after a minute, then just in the process of correspondence, those messages and media data that were read more than a minute ago will disappear.

In Telegram on Android, it is forbidden to create screenshots of correspondence (but no one bothers you to take a picture of the smartphone screen, as I did), in Telegram on iOS a screenshot is created, but a notification is sent to the interlocutor. Also, forwarding from such chats is prohibited.

In the chat list, a secret chat is indicated in green.

When a chat is deleted by one of the interlocutors, its content is automatically deleted from the other interlocutor.

In general, a very useful thing, very much. And I can’t tell you how many people got caught with all sorts of private correspondence in the messenger! Immediately create a secret chat, set automatic destruction, for example, after five to ten minutes (why store incriminating evidence on yourself, right?), and that’s it!

Automatic deletion of uploaded photo / video

Few people know that you can set automatic deletion of sent photos and videos in a regular chat (this does not work in groups and “Favorites”).

This is done as follows. Click on a paper clip, select a photo from the gallery, click on the photo (this is important, because you can send it by simply marking a photo from the gallery), you get into the editor window (crop, change settings). And there is a stopwatch icon that usually no one pays attention to. And in vain, because this is the ability to self-destruct an image some time after viewing it (precisely after viewing, not sending).

With the video, everything is the same, the same icon.

Listen to a voice message through the telephone speaker

Many users are afraid to listen to the received voice messages when they are in a public place, so that the messages are not heard by outsiders.

However, if you click on the message and bring the phone to your ear, the message will be played in the phone speaker and no one but you will hear it. This works on both Android and iOS.

How to hide your phone number from certain contacts

By default, Telegram shows your phone number to all your contacts. If you don't want this to happen, then you need to change the settings.

Open the General menu - Settings - Privacy. There we put “Nobody”. Here you can also set whether to show or block the number for specific subscribers.

This setup method is also needed so that you are not offered for communication on Telegram to those users who have your number in the phone book - if you don’t want it.

Protecting the application itself

For greater privacy, you can protect your Telegram login with a password. This is done like this: General menu - Settings - Confidentiality - Password code. There you can set the application auto-lock time (from a minute to five hours). It will be blocked, of course, not when you are in it, but if you switch to another application.

In this case, an icon with a lock will appear in the chat list. If you click on it, then when switching from Telegram when returning to it, in any case, you will be asked for a password code.

Deleting an account when inactive

Telegram does not store inactive accounts indefinitely. The default setting is to delete an inactive account after six months of inactivity. If you want to change this value, it can be changed in the settings. The maximum possible period of inactivity is a year.

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Night mode

Night mode in Telegram is very easy to enable. General menu and there on the top right click on the moon icon. Day mode is turned back on there - when you click, of course, on the sun icon!

At the same time, both day mode and night mode can be configured within wide limits: General menu - Settings - Chat settings.

By the way, pay attention to the “Chat list” setting. By default it is two-line, but three-line mode is more informative.

Working with the archive

Archive is an interesting opportunity to group chats/channels in one folder, which can be hidden if desired.

To archive a chat/channel, you just need to swipe it to the right. At the same time, the “Archive” section will appear above the list of chats. Inside it, chats/channels look exactly the same as in a regular list, they are just combined in a separate folder. To return a chat to the top level from the archive, you need to swipe it to the left there.

To remove an archive from the list of chats, swipe the archive to the left. Return the archive to the list of chats - pull the list of chats down.

An important point: if notifications are enabled for a chat / channel in the archive, then when a message arrives, they will be automatically transferred from the archive to the main list. If notifications are disabled, the chat / channel will remain in the archive when a notification is received.

Featured

If you do not want to lose some important message or entry in a telegram channel, then you can save it in a special “Favorites” folder.

This is done as follows. Each chat entry can be shared with another subscriber (click on the message, and there will be “Forward” in the menu), and next to each entry in the channel there is a “Share” arrow. In both cases, when you click the arrow, a subscriber selection window will appear, where the “Favorites” folder will always be the first.

The messages and posts in the channels saved in it are viewed in the order of the date and time of creation, when you click on the arrow, you will be shown the recording in the original chat / channel.

The Favorites folder is located above the list of chats (but below pinned chats). Also in the “Favorites” folder menu there is an item “Create a shortcut” - in this case, a separate shortcut to this folder will appear on the smartphone’s desktop.

This folder is also convenient to use to leave reminders for yourself: just go to “Favorites” and write a message there.

Attached chats / channels

If you read a certain subscriber or channel most often and want it to always be at the top of the list, regardless of whether there are new messages in it or not, then you can pin it to the top. To do this, long press on the chat/channel and click the “Pin” icon. Pinned chats/channels will be at the very top above Favorites.

Chat / Channel Preview

You can preview any chat/channel - one full screen of the latest messages, but the messages will not be marked as read. To do this, you need to long press on the chat/channel avatar.

Folders / tabs for chat groups and channels

This opportunity is used by a negligible number of users, and yet this is a very important opportunity for conveniently grouping chats / channels into folders (they rather look like tabs).

General menu - Settings - Folders. There you can add standard folders with new and personal, you can also create your own folders where the corresponding chats and channels are added. And this is very, very convenient!

And now our Telegram looks like this: at the top there is a grouping of chats / channels by tabs. If there are too many folders / tabs, they simply scroll horizontally. You can set the order of the folders in the settings: pick up the folder by the three strips on the left and move it to the desired place.

Free up space on your smartphone

If Telegram is actively used, then a lot of garbage accumulates on the smartphone, which it is advisable to delete. This is done in the General menu - Settings - Data and memory. There - Memory usage.

First, limit media storage to about a week (the default is Always). They will not be lost, they can always be restored from the Telegram cloud. Secondly, clear your cache and database - this can significantly free up space.

By the way, many users are annoyed by the autoplay of animated GIFs and videos - this is disabled in the same “Data and Memory” section.

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Desktop application

Many users do not know that Telegram has a rather convenient desktop application, so if you spend a lot of time at your PC, then, of course, it is much more convenient to use it than the application on your smartphone.

It is available for all platforms, you can download it from the official website.

The application, in contrast to the rather crooked desktop application WhatsApp, does not require connection with a smartphone, it is completely autonomous, it is synchronized with the smartphone via the cloud. It has many features of a smartphone application, including connecting multiple accounts, but it does not yet have secret chats.

Well, for cases when you cannot install the application on a PC, there is also a browser version of Telegram. It also does not require a connected phone, you just need to enter the code sent to your account phone number via SMS or Telegram on your smartphone the first time you connect. After that, the browser version will work completely autonomously.

We connect the developer menu

It is better not to do this unless necessary, but some users may need it - for example, in order to mark all messages as read.

How to get access there? Open the general menu, we need the very bottom line “Telegram for Android”.

Press it with the pad of your finger so that the gray ruler darkens, and hold it. After a few seconds, ¯_ (ツ) _ / ¯ appears. After that, press and hold again. And then in a few seconds the desired menu will appear.

After that, the menu will appear simply by long pressing on this line. Well, and, of course, if you do not know what a point means, then it is better not to call it.

Urgent deletion of your account

If you suddenly need to crash your account right away, then how to do it?

You go here at this link, enter your phone number with international code.

Telegram will send you a long verification code in the chat, which you will need to enter in the window. If the code is correct, a small menu will appear, where, among other things, there will be the option “Delete account”.

Now that you know all the secrets of Telegram, it's time to use it to its fullest. Anyone who is interested in life in the USA and immigration, we invite you to subscribe to ForumDaily channel. We share only the most important and useful things.

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