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Telegram adds a rich text editor, communities and private bot replies
Telegram’s July update expands long-form writing, group organisation, bot interactions and private GIF search across its mobile and desktop apps.
By Amelia Santos
Telegram has introduced a substantial app update that changes how users write, organise and interact inside chats. Announced on July 14, 2026, the release adds a rich text editor for long posts, a new way to group chats into communities, private-to-requester bot messages and a faster GIF search covering more than 350 million items.
The update is relevant beyond casual messaging because it pushes Telegram further into publishing, collaboration and structured group communication. Several features are available across mobile and desktop, while the new editor currently has a more limited rollout.
A richer editor for long Telegram posts
The headline feature is a visual rich text editor designed for blogs, articles and longer messages. Users can add headings, tables, lists, quotes and code blocks, as well as place photos and videos inside the body of a message. Telegram says the interface is optimised for both phones and computers, which should make longer posts easier to prepare without switching to another writing app.
The editor supports messages of up to 32,768 characters. It also connects to Telegram’s privacy-focused AI tools, powered by Cocoon, for generating text, formulas or tables. Telegram’s announcement describes those tools as private, but it does not provide an independent privacy audit in the release. Users who handle sensitive material should therefore check the relevant settings and avoid placing confidential information into any automated writing workflow.
There is also an important availability condition: Telegram says the rich text editor is currently available only to Premium users. The announcement does not give a wider rollout date for non-Premium accounts.
Communities bring related chats together
Telegram is also introducing Communities, which allow several groups, channels and bots to be linked around a shared subject. Members can see the other chats in a community and join them without needing a separate invitation link. The goal is to make large networks easier to navigate while reducing the number of unrelated entries in the main chat list.
Communities can be displayed as separate chats or as one expandable item. Telegram also distinguishes between visible and hidden chats: some conversations can be available to all community members, while others can remain visible only to administrators and the members of that specific chat.
The system is collaborative by default, meaning members can suggest or add more chats. Administrators can restrict that behaviour in the settings if a community needs tighter control. That detail matters for organisations and large interest groups, where an open structure may quickly become difficult to moderate.
Bot replies that do not clutter the group
The update gives bots a new way to respond inside groups without broadcasting every answer to everyone. A bot can now send a message that is visible only to the person who requested it. Telegram lists private AI summaries, confirmations, errors, menus and welcome messages as examples.
These responses can be sent after a command or at another point in the conversation, and the relevant commands are marked with a special icon in the bot menu. For group members, the practical benefit is straightforward: routine bot interactions no longer fill the shared conversation with messages that only one person needs to read.
Telegram presents this as a visibility feature rather than a new bot permission model. The announcement does not claim that every bot is trustworthy or that private display changes how a bot processes information. Users should still review a bot’s purpose and permissions before relying on it for personal or sensitive tasks.
Private GIF search and a bigger library
Telegram says its GIF panel can now search more than 350 million GIFs in 36 languages. The company describes the new search as faster and based on offline indexing of widely shared, publicly available GIFs using open-source AI models. It also says searches do not rely on third-party services.
That combination of scale and on-device or offline processing is the most concrete privacy-related change in the release, although the announcement does not publish technical benchmarks or an independent verification of the performance claim. Users should read the feature as Telegram’s stated implementation rather than as a laboratory-tested result.
What the update means for users
Telegram’s July release is less about one dramatic redesign than about making the app more useful for structured communication. Writers can prepare longer posts, communities can combine related conversations and bots can handle individual requests without interrupting everyone else. The GIF search adds a smaller but visible improvement for everyday messaging.
The main limitation is availability. Premium status is required for the rich text editor at launch, while Telegram does not specify whether every community or bot feature is enabled identically across all platforms. Users should update the official Telegram app and check the relevant chat or bot settings before assuming that a feature is available on their account.
For the full feature list and Telegram’s own conditions, consult the official announcement.