Telegram on Sunday introduced several new features on its platforms including chat folders with desktop sync, unlimited pins and swipe to archive. With more countries under COVID-19 lockdown, several work from users and students are said to be increasingly dependent on apps to communicate with each other. Telegram said that many of its users rely on its app more than ever in the last few weeks including for work and study purposes. The company said that with the new update, users can “separate fun from work, or family stuff from school stuff” which then lets users swipe between tabs to access any of the chats.
Telegram Update: Chat Folders with Desktop Sync
“To make sure everyone‘s chat lists can handle the increased load and you don’t miss important messages, we're introducing Chat Folders today,” Telegram said in its blog post. “Folders become available in the interface when your chat list is long enough to start getting cluttered.”
It has to be noted that users can also head to the settings menu on their app and navigate to folders to manually enable them.
Telegram also noted that the chat folders will sync to its other platform apps including its desktop app.
“Thanks to the extra space available on your computer screen, we've added a folder sidebar as well as some icons to make your folders more recognizable,” Telegram said.
Further, one of the major changes with the new update is the introduction of channel statistics for those with over 1,000 subscribers. The channel stats is said to provide detailed information about the channel including its growth and performance of its posts.
Telegram Update: Swipe to Archive and More
Other features that have been introduced with the update include swipe to archive, unlimited pins and voice recording animations on Android.
The swipe left to archive lets users transfer a particular chat to the archives folder. However, the archived chat will pop back into the chat list, upon a new message. The company also said that the feature would not work on Android if the user is using the chat folder option.
“Instead, you can long press on a chat to open the bulk actions menu where you can select multiple chats and then pin, mute, archive or delete them all at once,” Telegram said.
Additionally, with the new update, users can now have many pinned chats across each of the folders.
The company also said that users recording a voice or a video message would notice fancy animations while a new set of emojis are said to have been added to the existing list. The new emojis are particularly targeted at the COVID-19 outbreak.
“The latest additions to our army of animated emoji can help you be brave and urge your friends to stay safe and healthy,” Telegram said.
The final update is the animated dice that lets an user pick a number between one to six. Telegram said that the animated dice would be useful in multiple situations especially if a group poll or a friendly debate ends in a tie.
