Telegram on Wednesday announced a new update to its popular mobile messaging app, announcing version 4.5 of Telegram for Android and iOS. The latest revision of the service debuts support for albums, improved search, and a number of other additions meant to improve the overall user experience of the app, the company suggested. Following the update, sending multiple photographs or video clips to someone will automatically group all such attachments into albums that will appear in chats in the form of several thumbnails in two sizes; the first item in every album will be presented like it was before, as a downsized version of the original, whereas the following shots will appear as significantly smaller thumbnails. In practice, the functionality works in a manner that’s similar to the album-like feature of WhatsApp that Facebook’s instant messaging service debuted in July. The functionality itself is meant to streamline the process of receiving multimedia files from other people on Telegram by ultimately making them more presentable and easier to navigate without overpopulating one’s screen.
Support for albums is being added to Telegram alongside a modified notification system that will now send only a single notification for images and clips sent in bulks, so if someone sends you a compilation of eight photographs and a video, Telegram won’t spam your notification shade with nine individual prompts anymore. The current version of the feature is still limited to ten files per album, though this particular restriction may be loosened or eliminated in the future. Another related functionality coming as part of Telegram 4.5 is a new prompt denoting the order number of your photos marked for sending which will appear in the top right corner of their thumbnails on the “Share” screen.
Telegram users are now also able to store individual messages to the Android app’s cloud simply called Saved Messages. Such logs also act as bookmarks, allowing you to quickly navigate to the portion of the conversation where they appeared. Furthermore, the new version of Telegram debuts support for multiple profile photos and a more robust search engine for discovering channels, bots, and chat groups. The app’s search results page will now show the most popular findings first by default, with the engine itself allowing users to discover bots and channels by their titles. Refer to the Google Play Store banner below to download the latest stable build of Telegram for Android devices.
