Chat Themes, Interactive Emoji, Read Receipts in Groups and Live Stream Recording

Today's update lets you set different themes for individual chats, share your feelings with loved ones using interactive emoji with fullscreen effects, see detailed read receipts in groups and record video and audio from live broadcasts.

Chat Themes

Telegram has dozens of features to organize your chats and customize their appearance, from Chat Folders to Animated Backgrounds. In this update, coordination and decoration come together with new themes for individual chats.

Our designers created 8 new themes that you can apply to specific private chats. Each of the new themes features colorful gradient message bubbles, beautifully animated backgrounds and unique background patterns.

Both you and your chat partner can choose the theme for both sides and make any conversation easy to recognize, even when you can't find your glasses. This way you can set different themes for chats with co-workers and family members, so you won't accidentally send that video to your boss again.

To set a theme for your chat on Android, tap ⋮ > Change Colors. On iOS, tap the Chat Header > ⋯ > Change Colors. Your chat partner will see the theme if they are using the latest version of Telegram.

Each theme comes with a day and night version and will follow your app's night mode settings – whether you keep it dark all day, or have your chats follow the sun.

These first 8 themes are just the beginning – our designers are already working on adding more.

Interactive Emoji

We love animating emoji, but there are times when even a big red beating heart – that makes your phone vibrate with each beat! – is simply not enough to express your feelings.

With a little code, a little drawing and a lot of dark magic, we've created a new way of sharing emotion in real time. Send a single or to any private chat, then tap on the animated emoji to unleash a fullscreen effect.

If both you and your chat partner have the chat open, the animations and vibrations play simultaneously on your devices, so you feel close even when you're far apart.

Your chat partner will only see the effects if they are using the latest version of Telegram.

Our artists are already back in the dungeons, working on new fullscreen effects for more animated emoji.

Read Receipts in Small Groups

Both chat themes and interactive emoji currently only work in private chats. But this update also includes a big change for groups.

Group messages are marked as read (✓✓) as soon as one other member sees them. In small groups, you can now also select a message you sent to see which group members have read it.

To protect users' privacy, read receipts in groups are only stored for 7 days after the message was sent. It is not Telegram's business to keep a record of everything you've ever seen.

Record Live Streams and Video Chats

Telegram hosts millions of communities that can create live events for unlimited viewers. Whether it's a once-in-a-lifetime concert or an everyday algebra class, admins can now record Live Streams and Video Chats to publish them for those who missed the live version.

Admins can start a recording right from the Live Stream or Video Chat menu – with options to record Video and Audio or Only Audio. To record video, choose an orientation for the final video file, Portrait or Landscape. After you finish recording or end the broadcast, the file is instantly uploaded to your Saved Messages.

Tap ⋮ or ⋯ to open the broadcast menu and start recording. While recording, a red dot appears next to the title of the broadcast.

And that should give you enough things to do until we're back with the next update. As always, it shouldn't take us long.

September 19, 2021
The Telegram Team