Telegram is already one of the more feature-rich messaging apps out there, and the team behind it releases significant feature updates on a somewhat frequent basis. Today, Telegram 6.0 is making its way to users, and it brings some new capabilities.
The highlight of today"s release is chat folders, which do pretty much what you expect them to do. Once your chat list starts getting cluttered, you"ll be able to create folders to organize your chats in any way you want. You can make it so that certain kinds of chats, like channels or those with unread messages, are automatically added to a folder, or add them one by one. Folders can have an unlimited number of pinned chats, much like the archive.
On mobile, folders will look like tabs you can swipe between, and on the desktop version of Telegram, folders will be quickly accessible from a new side bar. Folders you create on one platform will automatically sync to the others, so everything will be organized the same way everywhere.
The feature will be automatically enabled once you have a certain number of chats, but you can enable it manually through this link or the app"s settings. Of course, the archive is still there if you wanna store away chats that don"t interest you anymore. One thing you"ll need to be aware of is that you"ll no longer be able to swipe on a chat to send it to the archive once you create chat folders, so you"ll need to use a long press.
Another useful new feature, particularly for large channels, is the ability to view channel statistics. If you have a channel with more than 1,000 followers, you can now view detailed statistics, such as how many people are joining the channel and the performance of each of the posts.
On the more aesthetic side of things, Telegram has added a new wavy animation when you"re holding the button to record a voice or video message. There are also a few new animated emoji, and this round"s additions are themed around the current coronavirus pandemic, meaning emoji related to diseases are now animated. There are also new sticker pack recommendations for the virus emoji, with many stickers to remind your friends to stay safe.
One new animated emoji that"s worthy of note is the dice. Unlike other emoji, the animations isn"t preset, so you can roll the dice and get a random number as a way to settle a decision, for example. Simply send the dice emoji to roll it.
The update should be rolling out to users now, but you may not get it right away. If you haven"t yet, you can download Telegram for your preferred platform.